Thursday, August 14, 2008

Beef Soup with Okra

This was an on the fly recipe based off the fact that you can start many filipino soups by boiling meat and onions, ginger and garlic and then adding in different veggies and accoutremant to change the flavor profile. I got a few pounds of meat from my local free range meat seller (A'ala Meats on Kalihi St in Oahu, their free range meat comes from Maui and is fed pineapple during the last couple weeks of life to sweeten the meat, they have great stew meat and most other cuts, depending on time and day), a couple different veggies, and my normal seasoning arsenal.

Ingredients:
3 to 4 pounds of stew meat
2 large onions
1 thumb sized amount of ginger
3 cloves of garlic
Braggs or salt & pepper to season
1 bag of okra
*I used Pictsweet Frozen. If you're got fresh okra, better but be forewarned that okra will make the soup thick by making it slightly slimy. I love okra and it's texture but some people hate it. Find a main veggie to substitute okra if you can't take it.
1 cup carrots
I cup summer squash (although I should have used zucchini, it tastes better....)
4 cups cooked brown rice
*I used brown rice that had a mix of short and long grain brown rice, red lentils, and pinto beans all cooked in a rice cooker the normal way you'd cook rice if it were sans lentils and beans.
Olive oil (if needed, in this soup I used barely any because the stew meat was semi fatty)

First I prepped all my veggies; sliced my onions, peeled and cut my ginger into discs (I remove them later), get my garlic cloves whole and cut the okra, carrots, and zucchini into 1/2 thick pieces. I cut my stew meat into bite size pieces so it's easier to eat.

Heat a soup pot then begin to dry sear the beef. It'll render it's own fat so oil will eventually come. I salt and pepper a little at this stage. After this it's so easy it's almost stupid. Once the beef is nice and browned, I throw in (maybe?) 12 cups of water, the 2 cut up raw onions, a couple tablespoons off Braggs, the 3 cloves of garlic, a little more pepper, and a pinch of salt for good measure.

After an hour or more of boiling (remember, save energy by bringing your pot to a boil then turning it down to a low temp, the liquid in your pot keeps boiling and maintains itself with the low heat) check on the meat to see if it's gone tender. If not, boil longer, if so, throw in your veggies and cooked rice and allow it to simmer together for another 20 minutes or half hour (or however long you can wait before diving into the pot and eating it all up). Also, throughout the boiling stage, make sure to keep the water level even, if your liquid has boiled down, add more water to the boil so you keep the same volume you started with. Season with Braggs, salt, pepper, whatever that's allowed or needed to get it where you think it should be. Let it cool then eat it up!

P.S. Remember that okra was used so expect a soup that's thick and slimy. If you're like me, you'll lap it up like a hungry little puppy. The soup isn't so think so you can serve the soup over more brown rice, you just end up eating a lot of brown rice....

No comments: