Dish of Beef Adobo with Potatoes
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Beef Adobo with Potatoes


Philippine   -   Adobong Baka
Serves:
Effort:
Sched:
DoAhead:  		 4 main
***
10 hrs
Yes		 Beef adobo is made less often than chicken and pork adobo due to its expense, but it's a worthy dish. This economical recipe is adapted from our all meat version - Beef Adobo. See also Comments.

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Beef, lean (1)
-- Marinade
Garlic
Ginger Root
Chili, Thai (2)
Bay Leaves
Vinegar (3)
Soy Sauce
Pepper, blk
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Potatoes (4)
Oil
Stock
Prep   -   (8 hrs - 20 min work)
  1. Trim all fat, membranes, etc. from the BEEF (weight given is after trimming). Put all trimmings in a saucepan, bring to a boil for 2 minutes. Rinse and clean the pan. Put the beef back in with water just to cover and set to simmering to make stock. Do this as far ahead as practical. Strain, then defat the stock using your gravy separator.
  2. Cut Beef into cubes about 1-1/2 inches on a side or as desired.
  3. Crush GARLIC and chop fine. Slice GINGER very thin and slice into threads. Stem CHILIS and split open. Combine All Sauce items. in a non-reactive bowl, then stir in Beef. Marinate overnight in the fridge or 4 hours at a cool room temperature, tumbling now and then.
  4. Peel POTATOES and cut into cubes about 3/4 to 1 inch on a side. Put in a saucepan with water to cover and simmer until just done, about 20 minutes (see Note-5).
Run   -   (1-1/2 to 2 hrs depending)
  1. Drain Beef well, retaining all the marinade.
  2. In a spacious coverable sauté pan or wok, heat Oil and fry Beef, tumbling often until it is lightly browned all over.
  3. Stir in Marinade and 1/3 cup Stock. Bring to a boil, cover tightly and simmer until beef is tender, 3/4 to 1 hour depending on cut.
  4. When Beef is tender, add Potatoes and enough stock to make a proper stew. Simmer until potatoes are heated through.
  5. Serve hot with plenty of steamed Jasmine rice.
NOTES:

  1. Beef:

      Weight is for lean beef with any bones or excess fat removed. I prefer chuck (shoulder) but round or any other of the more flavorful cuts will work. Cooking time will be affected depending on cut, and prep time depending on how much trimming you have to do. It's best to have plenty of trimmings for the stock.

  2. Chili:

      The proper chili would be Siling-Labuyo, a very small very hot Philippine chili. Unfortunately these have become scarce even in the Philippines. Growers have switched to larger, easier to harvest chilis similar to the Thai chilis we have here. These are sometimes of disappointing heat. For details see our Philippine Chilis page.

  3. Vinegar:

      Preferably use a high quality Philippine cane, palm or coconut vinegar. Lacking those, rice or cider vinegar can be used. For details see our Sours page.

  4. Potatoes:

      Use White Rose or similar potatoes. Avoid Yukon Gold type potatoes which turn to mush if cooked just a little long. For details see our Potatoes page.

  5. Method:

      Do not add raw potatoes to the stew and expect them to cook there. The acid in the vinegar will harden the outside of the raw cubes giving them an unpleasing texture. Service is also much more flexible if they are cooked separately.

  6. Comments

      You could argue that potatoes aren't native to the Philippines, but nor are beef, chilis or sugar cane for the vinegar. If you really want to, you can use taro instead of Potatoes, though it is thought to have come from Malaysia, just a lot longer ago.
  7. U.S. measure: t=teaspoon, T=Tablespoon, c=cup, qt=quart, oz=ounce, #=pound, cl=clove in=inch ar=as required tt=to taste
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