Imbaliktad a Baka, Ilokano Stirfry Beef

Imbaliktad a Baka, Ilokano Stirfry Beef. You may at one time heard about this Ilokano dish, it is basically a beef stirfried pulutan dish that uses the freshest beef or carabeef, the meat cut may not necessarily be the tenderloin, any lean meat part is used. The beef is just stirfried with the usual aromatics garlic, ginger and onion and to spice it up some hot chili. A little vinegar, sukang Iloko is added and season with salt and freshly cracked peppercorns.

The beef is strifried to half cooked. Imbaliktad literaly means flipped over therefore the beef is just quickly stirfried at high heat on a few turns or flip until the red color of the meat disappears. The reason is that, if the beef is cooked after this stage or overcooked it becomes rubbery especially if other beef cut except the tenderloin is used. Imbaliktad is one of the following several popular Ilocano must try dish when visiting the Ilocos Region.

Papaitan Kambing
Pinapaitan Baka
Papaitan Soured with Kamias
Sinanglao
Dinakdakan
Insarabsab
Kinilaw na Kambing
Kinilaw na Baboy
Pigar Pigar

Imbaliktad a Baka as I mentioned above uses the freshest beef, if you’re in Manila I would not recommend beef bought at Wet Markets not unless you are definitely sure that they are indeed newly butchered and properly handled. You may find good beef at some supermarkets but I doubt the quality of meats sold at SM Supermarkets, have you notice how the stinks smell whenever you get near their meat section? For this recipe I used the ordinary stirfry cut of beef, here in Australia you are assured that meat are fresh, they even place a ‘Use by’ or ‘Best before’ dates label , it is an offence to sell after the stated dates. Here is the recipe on how to cook Imbaliktad a Baka, Ilokano Stirfry Beef.

Ingredients:

1/2 kilo fresh lean beef, cut into strips or slices
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 thumb size ginger, cut into thin strips
1 medium size onion, chopped
1-2 pieces hot chili, sliced
3-4 tbsp. vinegar
1/2 tsp. cracked peppercorns
3-4 stalks spring onion, chopped
salt to taste
cooking oil

Cooking procedure:

In a frying pan or wok saute at heat at high heat the garlic, ginger and onion until fragrant. Stir in the beef, cracked peppercorns and chili and stir cook for 1 to 2 minutes or until the red color of the meat start to disappear. Add in the vinegar let cook undisturbed for about half a minute. Season with salt to taste and garnish with chopped spring onion, stir cook for another half a minute and serve immediately.