Bistek
Bistek is steak, but one transformed by its encounter with soy sauce and citrus. My addition is browned butter, an ingredient not so common in Southeast Asian cooking. This was one of my lola’s signature dishes: She’d cut the onions half-an-inch thick, sear them briefly, then add a little water to make the pan flare up, so they’d get extra crisp. She would always plate it in a casserole dish, with enough pan sauce to sop up with rice. The beef fat should coat your lips, and then the citrus cuts through it. It’s worth investing in good olive oil; every ingredient matters, because there are so few, and you can taste them all.
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