Mechado is a Filipino meat dish made with beef, potatoes, and tomato sauce. Traditional recipes used back fat to add moisture and tenderness, while modern versions are more like a stew. Mechado is similar to other Filipino meat dishes like Kalderata, Adobo, and Kare-Kare.
Mechado is a meat dish that is often served with rice. Traditional recipes consisted of strips of beef larded in gravy, while modern versions tend to be more like a stew. The sauce is typically made from tomatoes, soy sauce, and calamansi, which is a small, tart-tasting citrus fruit. It can be prepared with a variety of spices and cuts of meat. Mechado is most popular in the Philippines and is similar to many other meat dishes from the region, such as Kalderata, Adbobo and Kare-Kare.
Early versions of mechado used back fat to add moisture, flavor, and tenderness to inexpensive, lean cuts of meat. This was accomplished by weaving the two ingredients together so they became one. The meat was then browned and simmered in gravy and spices.
More modern versions of the recipe are more like a simple beef stew. While the traditional method is to slow the cooking of the mechado, many cooks now speed up the process by using a pressure cooker to prepare the dish. The dish is now rarely prepared with lard.
A typical mechado dish consists of a base of beef, potatoes, and tomato sauce. It is usually seasoned with onion, garlic, soy sauce, bay leaves and vinegar. The onion and garlic are first sauteed in the oil, then the meat is added and cooked until lightly browned.
Then water and tomato sauce are added until the sauce reaches the desired consistency, after which the meat is left to simmer. When tender, the other ingredients are added and the mixture is allowed to simmer again until the sauce has reached the desired consistency. The last step is to add the potatoes and cook them in the mixture until soft.
Mechado lengua is another take on the beef tongue dish. It’s also made with a tomato sauce and a similar mix of spices. This dish is often served with fried bacon.
Kalderata, adobo and kare-kare are traditional Filipino dishes with sauces, spices and preparation methods similar to mechado. The main difference with kalderata is that it is usually made with goat shoulders and liver spread, but is otherwise a similar type of stew. Adobo is a method of preparing meat that includes a tomato, vinegar, and garlic sauce similar to that made for mechado, although it’s not necessarily used to make a stew. Kare-kare has a dramatically different sauce, which consists mostly of peanuts, vegetables and beef, but as a stew it has a similar texture and is prepared in a similar way.
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