BULALO

Bulalo is the official food in our home. It is for me the best food that goes very well when drinking hard liquor. Since Bulalo consists of primarily beef meat with the large bones and tendon meat, that usually takes time for it to soften and be edible, and for the soup to take the beef flavor, it is an opportune time for me to drink and get excited from the aromatic smell.

To be able to produce a very good bulalo, you should initially procure the right ingredients. The beef meat should be fresh, should have the meat wrapped around the big bones, you can see the cartilage meat that line in between the meat, bones that still have the marrow, and most importantly no foul odor, it should smell fresh. ( I also prefer the Knee cap part of the beef-- more tendon thus more beef oi and scum, more nakakabata)

It is also important to take note of your soup pot or casserole, if your using a pressure cooker learn how to use it, or just an ordinary pot that would take longer for the meat to cook fork tender, make sure that the meat you buy would have enough room for the bones, the soup, and vegetables you'd want to put.

This is how I cook Bulalo:

-clean meat, rinse with running water

-place in pot, then put water, meat should be submerged, add small piece of ginger (luya), rock salt

-Place in high temp until soup boils, then bring it down to a simmer, maybe medium depends on your cooking range

-clean scum that rises from soup/ add water when needed

-when meat is fork tender remove from heat

-in a separate pot, put some of the beef stock, cook the spices first, onions, garlic, peppercorns, 

-then cook your preferred vegetables, potatoes, cabbage, chinese cabbage ( pechay daw ba yun?) before serving

By the time you finish cooking the bulalo, if you are like me, you would be in a somewhat drunken state, giving more meaning to sipping hot soup. mmmm