family dish

“Minanok”

Every time the family gets together my grandparents would always rush to get to the city here in Manila. My grandmother always prepares a dish called “Minanok” at first you’ll assume that the main ingredient is a chicken am I right? Well sorry to say you’re wrong. It’s actually beef. My grandmother started serving this dish when she and my mom settled things after a long feud. The minanok was more of like a torch to be passed on from my grandmother’s mother down to my mom as being the youngest of 5 daughters. As soon as they had settled things between them my grandmother rounded up her daughters and they all rushed into our kitchen as if it was an emergency of some sort.

After the long day that my family spent with each other I took time to ask my mom why my grandmother only cooks minanok. She told me the story behind it and I had to admit it was a wild ride especially when my mom tells the story. It had something to do with my grandmother’s sisters that it was a recipe passed on to them by there eldest sister who unfortunately died during the war and then there was just my grandmother and her sister left. But my grandmother’s sister decided to devote her life to god and decided to head for the convent. So my grandmother was the only one who was left and fortunately had a family and I guess she was also trying to let the recipe live on by passing it to my mom and my aunties.

This dish as I can say is the best it fits every occasion it was good for birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries, campaign (my grandfather ran for public office) and it was just best for every time the family gets together. It was like a cherry on top during dinning. The dish is always prepared early in the morning around 6 am it’s like a ritual that my grandmother follows it had something to do with the wakening of the beef that is not placed on the fridge, my grandmother prefers to put it in an ice box made from Styrofoam filled with ice and it was also filled with half kilo off salt making it oh so cold. So the beef is taken out from the ice box froze for only 4 hrs. And so she defrosts the one and half kilo of beef by boiling it (the amount of beef depends on the serving) and adding salt and pepper, she makes it clear that no MSG must tamper the recipe. While she boils the beef she prepares the “Mustasa” (a leafy vegetable tastes a bit bitter and can also be an aphrodisiac)about half a kilo of it then she cuts the vegetable into two she divides the leafy party from the stem or the hard part of the vegetable. As soon as she’s done with washing the vegetables, she sautés 2 bulbs of onion and the 1 bulb of garlic garlic. My grandmother sautés the onion first because it cooks longer that the garlic and when she sautés the garlic she leaves the skin on because my grandfather has heart complications she said it was good for the heart. When the garlic is all golden brown, she adds the boiled beef on the frying pan and uses the extract of the beef as broth. Once more the she covers the frying pan and waits for it to boil. After it boils she adds the stem part of the vegetable and once more she waits for it to boil. And after 5 minutes she adds the leafy part of the vegetable and she doesn’t lest the vegetable brake down so much. She made it clear that a vegetable retains its vitamins as long as it does not brake into bits. And that is how you make minanok.

Maybe all it takes to consider a recipe a family recipe or dish is that it involves the family. Everyone will enjoy eating a dish that is filled with fun and love. Like what Nicholas Cage quoted in the movie “NEXT” “it was the summation of the parts working together in such a way that nothing needed to be added, taken away or altered that makes it beautiful.” It is true that when everything just works together for the right place at the right time it is truly beautiful. If a family can make time and help in the kitchen the dish would really be grate.