BEEF NILAGA

BEEF NILAGA

Good morning everyone (or two), this week is that first time of the year when it snows in Canada and temperature below 0 becomes a given. Which, of course, triggers the need to get a flu shot and some hot soup! Because what's winter and cold without a cool hot soup. Or, that's just how I try to justify the fact that R thinks me cooking super easy recipes will exponentially increase the chances of getting the end result right. Well, think again!

Anyway, just because the recipe is boring doesn't mean the ingredients are too. This being said,without further ado, let me introduce to you the stars of the show:

- coming from the far isles of the Middle Earth kingdom, surrounded in darkens and black magic, I present to you , the Pink Potato! Its powers are ancient but they say it can turn to black if cut and left alone on a plate!.. or even produce thunders and electricity if covered in copper and zinc armor! The legend says, during the Great Wild Fire, everything got destroyed except for the potatoes which got baked and smelled so good that people could not resist and had to try them. And that's how they conquered the world! - (we need 2 medium ones )

-From the mystical Orient, I present to you the Master of the Arts, the one that can make you cry just by looking and it, the one that has the power to turn your girlfriend away just by opening the mouth, the One, The Only, The Onion! Its powers are so great that only a medium sized one is enough to fulfill all your cooking desires.

- From the far Eastern Europe where ancient wars were fought and great nuclear radiation was born, I present to you the Macedonia Frozen Vegetables Mix! Legend says that just a bag is enough to feed an entire family of one!

-And last but not least, I introduce the Star of the Show, The Unique, Betty! If you don't know who Betty is ( ignorant! ) I highly recommend you check the Adobong Adobo post. Anyway, because of previous complaints, Betty will not play a big part today and we shall just mention the name in credits.

As such, let the show begin!

Today we shall apply the cubist cooking method. In contrast with our other modern fusion cooking or traditional methods, cubism is more about rejecting the idea that cooking should reflect nature but instead it should be more about exposing the two dimensional faces of food: the nice pretty ingredient initial look and the final unappealing result.

In order to achieve this you will need to cut everything in small cubes and then just boil them together. It's the perfect recipe for success as a cubist cook.

It's ok if no one will appreciate us now, I'm sure the success of this method will highly increase when you are dead. 

Anyway, long story short you need to cube all ingredients, and toss them together in a big pot.

There will be some troubles with the cabbage , oh yes, I forgot about it, and in the end I also present you : Cabbage! Its main quality is that it is difficult to cube, unless you are in Japan where they can grow it as a cube directly ( save some for your morning smoothie unless the animal in you takes over and wants a snack)

I also forgot to remove the foam from the meat, but that is a story for another cooking. As a result today, the cubist method will provide you with a steaming bowl of soup for the whole weekend and large chunks of cabbage for your inner vegetarian cravings. 

Don't forget to complement the soup with 3 spoons of two dimensional fish sauce and a cube of maggy chicken flavor to complement the beef. There you go, fish, beef and chicken, the 3 axes of cubism cooking flavors coming together to create the perfect soup. Of course we shall also toss in the last 5 chilly peppers left in the fridge since last summer ( great dehydration method to create chilly flakes) and... well that's it! Cubism is about complexity in simple shapes, exposing the richness and depth of flavors by using just a few simple ingredients.

Sarap!