Nilagang baka
Brisket boiled soft with the vegetables added in four waves, saba bananas among them.
Beef. Not vegetarian — contains beef, fish sauce.
Ingredients
- 1.5 kg beef brisket, in 5 cm chunks
- 1 onion, quartered
- 2 teaspoons black peppercorns
- 2.5 litres water
- 3 tablespoons fish sauce
- 4 saba bananas, peeled and halved
- 3 potatoes, quartered
- 2 corn cobs, in rounds
- 400 g cabbage, in wedges
- 200 g green beans
- 1 bunch pechay
Method
- BRISKET, NOT SHANK. There is no bone to empty here and no marrow to protect, which is what the bulalo page on this site is built around. This one is about the vegetables, and brisket gives you meat that shreds under a fork and a broth with body rather than one you keep clear.
- Beef, onion, peppercorns and the cold water into a pot. Bring it up and skim for the first 15 minutes, then cover and leave it at a steady low simmer for 2 hours.
- Test it with a fork rather than a clock: the fibres should separate under light pressure. Undercooked brisket is stringy and no amount of vegetables hides it.
- Fish sauce in at this point, once the volume has settled.
- FOUR WAVES, AND THE ORDER IS THE RECIPE. Potatoes and corn first, 12 minutes. Saba bananas second, 8 minutes. Beans third, 4 minutes. Cabbage and pechay last, 2 minutes with the heat off and the lid on.
- The saba are the thing people leave out and should not. They go slightly sweet and slightly savoury in the broth and they are why this is not simply a beef stew. Peel them at the last minute or they darken.
- Do not stir once the vegetables are in. Lift and settle with a spoon instead. Stirred, the potatoes break up and cloud the pot.
- Ladle so each bowl gets meat, one banana half, a wedge of cabbage and some corn. Fish sauce and crushed chilli on the side.
Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.
Filed under Philippines · All recipes