Tapa

The cure itself, two days in soy and calamansi, and not the breakfast plate.

Beef. Not vegetarian — contains beef.

Ingredients

• 600 g beef round or sirloin, sliced 4 mm
• 60 ml soy sauce
• 60 ml calamansi juice
• 40 g brown sugar
• 1 whole head of garlic, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• oil, to fry

Method

1. THIS IS A CURE, NOT A DISH, and it is written on its own because tapsilog is this plus garlic rice plus a fried egg, and a cook who wants the cure should not have to read a page about a breakfast to find it.
2. Mix everything but the oil and turn the slices through it until each is wet all over.
3. TWO DAYS IN THE FRIDGE, covered, turned once. One day tastes of soy sitting on beef; two days tastes of tapa. This is the opposite of the one-hour rule for a bistek, and for the opposite reason -- the slices are thinner, the sugar is doing the work, and there is far less acid.
4. Lift the slices out and pat them dry. Wet meat will not brown, it will boil.
5. Fry in a thin film of oil over a high heat, about 90 seconds a side, until the edges catch. The sugar will want to burn, so keep it moving.
6. To make it a tapsilog, see that page. To keep it, the cured slices freeze flat between sheets of paper and fry from frozen.

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