Bistek Bulalo

Bistek Bulalo. The Pinoy traditional way of cooking beef shank in bone, has always been boiling with vegetables and/or potatoes, these soup dish is called bulalo. See my previous post on bulalo. Beef shank when boiled slowly till the meat and litid almost detached from the bone in addition to the bone marrow give a very rich flavor of the broth of bulalo. Today I am offering another cooking method of beef shank, I call it bistek bulalo. The dish is prepared ala pepper steak complete with gravy sauce but with a touch of the equally famous bistek. See my previous post on bistek.

The gravy is made from the rich flavored stock of boiling the beef shank, plus the distinct salty sour taste of soy sauce and lemon juice of bistek.

Ingredients:

1/2 k. bulalo, beef shank, saw cut crosswise into 1” thick
1 small size onion, quartered
1/2 tsp. whole peppercorns
1/2 head garlic, crushed
2 medium size onion, sliced into rings
1/2 tsp peppercorns, crushed
1/4 c soy sauce
2 tbsp cornstarch
2 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp sugar
salt
cooking oil

Cooking procedure:

Put beef shanks on casserole, add 8 to 10 cups water. Add in quartered onion, crushed garlic and peppercorns, bring to a boil, simmer for 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until beef are just tender. Removing scum that rises and adding water if required. Remove beef shank from the casserole and drain, keep aside. Reserved stock for the sauce. In a frying pan heat 1/4 cup oil, stir fry onion rings until translucent remove from pan, drain excess oil and set aside.

In same frying pan, fry beef shank steaks for 2 to 3 minutes each side or until color start to change to dark golden brown, remove from pan, drain excess oil and place in a platter, garnish with fried onion rings.

To prepare sauce, add 2 cups beef stock on same frying pan with oil used in frying the beef, add crushed peppercorns, soy sauce, lemon juice, sugar and salt to taste. Bring to a boil and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes. Thicken sauce with cornstarch diluted in 1/4 cup of stock. Pour gravy sauce over the platter of beef shank steaks. Serve immediately with rice or mashed potato.