Written by: seigfredtristan on October 12, 2010

Before you read on, click this to know the difference between Mechado, Afritada, Menudo and Kaldereta.

Mechado is an astounding fusion of Mediterranean and Asian cuisine that making a lazy recipe for it here does not give it justice. So I am showing you how to cook Mechado properly like a strict grandmother. What does Mechado taste like you may ask? Get a spoonful of tomato sauce and mix a teaspoon of soy sauce in it. That’s what it tastes like but of course when you do the stew, the flavor is much better. If you are ready, let’s get the stove burnin’.

This is what you need:

1 kilo of beef – flank cut, skirt cut, or butterflied beef tenderloin or the Bistek cut

Pork or beef fat that we will roll in the middle of our beef

a lemon or calamansi

kitchen string or a strong thread to hold your rolled beef

4 stalks of celery

2 medium sized carrots

2 large onions

1 cup of tomato sauce

1/3 cup of soy sauce

salt and pepper

2 tablespoons of oil

a pot

a pan

7 hours

an old person

This is how you do it:

You need to roll that pork or beef fat with your beef cut. Spread it wide on the chopping board, lay your fat on top of it (not your fat, the beef or pork fat), apply salt and pepper, squeeze a lemon on it or better yet calamansi (local Philippine citrus). Let it sit there for a couple of hours. After that you can rock and ROLL it. It would be easy if I just show you the pictures.

If you don’t know how to tie a beef, my uncle will teach you. Click this.

Place the pan on the stove in medium heat and add 2 tablespoons of oil. Wait for the pan to heat up before you sear your rolled beef. Why do you need to sear the meat before stewing? Because it adds an extra kick to the flavor. If you’re not convinced look up the word caramelize in my uncle’s website again. Here’s another picture Mr-I-don’t-read.

What we did there in the picture is make a stock for our stew. You put your beef in the pot with all the vegetables in and let it simmer in the pot for at least 5 hours in low to medium heat. This means that you will be doing this if you have a whole day off with a stack of DVD’s at hand. I also suggest you read the Pentateuch of the Bible. Because Moses is cool. Oh, let that old person read it for you for a fantastic journey.

Now after 5 hours, pour in your tomato sauce, soy sauce and leave it for another hour or two. The more the stock is reduced – I am assuming you now know what’s next – the better the flavor. Put salt and pepper and adjust the flavors. This stew is prone to being salty because of the soy sauce, so be careful or you will be the target of forks for dinner.

Now fast forward to 2 hours after, take your meat off the pot. (Let the stock simmer there.) And slice your meat. I suggest you slice it lengthwise so you will find yourself ruining the last 7 hours of harrumph-ing in the kitchen . Yes, crosswise.

Place the slices in a serving bowl and strain your sauce in. Do not drown your beef or they will haunt you everyday at 3AM.

R.I.P. because you are done amigo.

If you don’t see any potatoes or carrots or bell peppers, it’s because I don’t want them. If you want to, you always have a choice of having a starchy sauce. Traditionally though if you ask anyone how to cook Mechado, their directions will include potatoes. But not me your highness, I do my Mechado without the spud. Sometimes when I eat potatoes, the hairs at the back of me neck stand and they let me kill house lizards with my porcupiny-nape.

That is how to cook Mechado. Let me know what happened.

If you find this quite difficult to do, click this to a quick and easy Mechado recipe.

For those who want to learn another Filipino tomato based stew, click here for How to cook Afritada.

For those who want to learn yet another Filipino tomato based stew, click here for How to cook Menudo.