Recipe 108: Beef Steak or Mutton Steak?

Mutton Steak

One of the dishes that I really missed nowadays is the yummy beef steak. Since my father died 7 years ago, I never had the chance to enjoy again the taste of this viand. Once in a while, when I was still in my home country few years passed, I have eaten several varieties of beef steak from the typical fast food chains or well-known restaurants but what I really missed is the distinctive beef steak my father used to cook and serve in our table. One time, I decided to give it a try and cook the typical beef steak for our dinner. Since beef is hardly ever available in our area where we stay right now, I have substituted beef from mutton as the basic meat component of the steak. So in short, it turned out; it was not really a beef steak but a mutton steak. Anyway, these two livestock meats look almost the same (both are red meats) and taste nearly equally. The only usual consideration I thought of in making this kind of dish is that it requires generous time of preparation. Since, my housemates and I usually purchase the meat as frozen (we could not avail fresh beef/mutton meat from the market), the frozen meat is usually soaked in water first for several minutes or few hours or until it softens then is sliced considerably thin and long. Hence one needs a really, really sharp knife in slicing the meat. So that’s it. This is how to cook a beef or mutton steak. It’s up to you which do you prefer.

Ingredients:

1kg Beef or Mutton

Potatoes (cut into medium sized squares)
Carrots (sliced into long pieces)
2 pc. Onion (one is sliced into ring-like and the other one into small pieces)
Cloves of Garlic (minced)
Soy Sauce
2 pc. Lemon or 2 tsp of White Vinegar
1 pc Ginger (sliced into thin and long pieces)
Cooking oil
Flour or Corn Starch dissolved in considerable amount of warm water until thickens
Ground Black Pepper

How to cook:

      Preparation (Marinade):

1. Slice the meat into considerably thin and medium or long pieces. Soak first the meat before slicing the meat in lukewarm water if it’s frozen. Put in an empty container or bowl and set aside. Get the ingredients; pour soy sauce together with garlic, onion (sliced into squares only), ginger, ground pepper, and lemon (and/or vinegar) into the bowl. Mix well then marinate for at least 30 minutes.
   
   Cooking Time:
2. In a pan, heat cooking oil. Drain first the meat and put it into the pan and fry in a very high heat until meat is cook thoroughly. It is advisable not to overcook the meat because it will become hard to chew. 
3. Once done, place meat in a serving plate then set aside until all meat is cooked. Put in the ring-like sliced onion in the remaining oil until it turns transparent.
4.  Put it on top of the beef once done. Pour the remaining marinade into the pan. Heat for few minutes. Put considerable amount of dissolved flour/corn starch and mix thoroughly. The more amount of the dissolved flour you add into the marinade, the thicker the sauce. Season to taste.
5.  Once done, pour the sauce over the meat and onions and serve.

Of course, the outcome never came up exactly the same taste as with my father's output , but I think it looks like almost the same as with his. As i have written in some of my posts about dishes, my father is always been my inspiration why I am doing this stuff, why I basically like cooking, and why I continue doing such this. It is because, whenever I do cooking, i remember my father.

Enjoy your meal!