Bistek: Filipino Steak and Onions

hey thanks for tuning in this deck is Filipino steak and onions and it was another one of my favorite things to eat when I was a kid on a Surface it's pure Simplicity to make it's just slices of beef soy sauce onions and calamansi juice calamansi is a fruit native to Southeast Asia that looks a lot like lime but is simultaneously more sour and more sweet it's hard to explain as you can see from the photos despite its Simplicity there's a lot of ways to prepare and present bistec today I'm going to do it my way and my way starts with this about a pound of flank steak you can use another cut if you like such as sirloin but for my way I'm going to flank and I keep saying my way by the way because this recipe doesn't come from my mother she gave me the broad strokes and how to make this deck but she never gave me specifics such as how much of an ingredient to use she always just had to use my instincts and feel it like she was training me to be some sort of cooking Jedi anyway my feelings are telling me that I need to trim and slice this beef like this I trimmed off any silver skin and sinewa bits and then sliced it about a half centimeter thick across the grain here's a better look slicing across a grain shortens the meat fibers which results in a more tender steak I'll also be taking an extra precaution disregard which I'll get to in a second first I have to get the marinade together and that starts with the juice from both a lime and lemon a half cup of soy sauce and a teaspoon of sugar because calamansi isn't readily available around these parts I'm substituting it with lime which adds bite and lemon which adds sweetness supplement it of course by the sugar next comes onions of course as well as some additional aromatics in the form of garlic and ginger my mother did not use garlic and ginger in a recipe but I think they round out the flavor I just need to cut all these up perfect I sliced onions into somewhat chunky strips then gave the garlic and ginger a fine chop and now it's time to get back to the steak first I'll add quite a bit of freshly ground pepper that should do it that in goes the soy sauce as well as tablespoon each of lemon and lime juice I'll give that a bit of a mix before adding the secret ingredient foreign I'll add about a half teaspoon I don't know the exact science but the baking soda coats the meat fibers and prevents them from clumping together when they cook which would obviously result in a tough piece of meat otherwise I'll mix this all again and then let it sit for no more than about 20 minutes so that the baking soda doesn't have a chance to affect the flavor all right there's oil in my big purple Wok so that must mean it's time to cook that begins with the onions which I'll dump in all at once normally for the stick the onions are only lightly fried so that they remain bouncy and keep their sharpness my cousin's bistic for instance had onions so lightly cooked that they were practically still raw and they stung their eyes you ate I'm not gonna do that in fact I'm going to be a little chefy and cook half of these onions the normal way until they're translucent and have softened a bit then I'll pull those out the other half I'll cook longer until they start to caramelize and get a little sweetness because it's all about adding flavor and here are the onions after about an extra 10 minutes of frying they're not super caramelized but they are quite a bit softer and sweeter than the first batch I'll pull these out and then get going with a beef I added more oil to the wok and it's ready for the beef which I'll pretty much add all at once this would be a major major No-No if I was making stir fry a giant mess of meat in a pan would cause condensation so instead I fry the beef in batches so that it can steam and give up all this juice into the pan but giving off juices is exactly what I'm looking for in this case because those juices are going to be the sauce that'll finish the dish you can already see those juices starting to Bubble off the meat here it is after a few minutes you can see how nice and sauce he's gotten and the meat's mostly cooked at this point I can throw in the ginger and the garlic if I thrown it in earlier there's a chance it could have burned now I can also add the last ingredient which is the sugar I'll stir to make sure everything's Incorporated then it's time to taste seems just about right to me I don't want it to be too salty at this point because I'm still going to reduce the sauce to do that I simply remove the meat and turn the heat up to reduce the liquid by about half it should thicken up slightly on its own but if you wanted a slightly thicker sauce you could add a cornstarch slurry which I've gone through in previous videos I'm pretty happy with this though and why wouldn't I be because look at that that's mistec Filipino steak and onions you've got nice tender strips of beef and yes the beef is tender despite being cooked thoroughly thanks to the way it was cut as well as because of the baking soda then you've got firmer sharper onions which I put on the bottom and the sweeter caramelized onions that I put on top for contrast the only thing this dish is missing aside from a big plate of rice on the side is a generous shower of Tangy salty pan sauce and it's ready thanks for watching if you like this video please give it a thumbs up or better yet a thumbs up and a click on the Subscribe button and if you have any suggestions for future Filipina dishes that I should try making because honestly I only know so many feel free to drop in the comments along with any questions or opinions I'll see you next week

Channel: Dinner by Dad

Views: 40,794

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Id: XjkxO4ZFiqo

Length: 6min 36sec (396 seconds)

Published: Sat May 20 2023