Nilagang baka : boiled beef and vegetables
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Nilaga means boiled; baka means beef. Nilagang Baka, or boiled beef, is a fairly easy dish to prepare. It only involves one basic process–boiling. To be more specific, the boiling involved in cooking Nilagang Baka refers to slow cooking.
A succuessful Nilagang Baka dish has three basic features :
1. a very good broth;
2. fork tender beef; and
3. a good mix of vegetables
A good stock is produced by slowly cooking the beef with the correct spices. Hence, it’s important to use stewing beef. Brisket, shank or short ribs are ideal.
It follows that by the time you come up with a very good broth, you have very tender beef.
What would be a good mix of vegetables? Remember that whatever vegetables you choose will also affect the flavor of the broth. And, with the plainness and simplicity of this dish, it is important to choose vegetables that will taste and look good together. The most common choices are potatoes, carrots, pechay (chinese cabbge or bok choy) and the native cabbage (napa variety). The more adventurous might want to include squash. In this version, I omitted the leaves and opted for carrots, potatoes and japanese sweet corn cobs. Surprised? Don’t be. The sweetness of the carrots and the corn blend wonderfully well with the saltiness of the beef broth. The saltiness of the beef broth and the flavor of the beef itself add a new dimension to the experience of eating corn on the cob. It’s really good.
A few notes on Japanese sweet corn cobs. The have been around in the local market for several years now. They have bright yellow kernels. And they are naturally sweet. They cook in a jiffy and the kernels retain their crispiness. The first time we saw them was along the sidewalks of Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City, right in front of Ateneo University. Vendors sold them to motorists and passerby. Today, japanese sweet corn cobs are widely available in supermarkets. We don’t buy from the Katipunan vendors anymore. The last time we did, the package contained 3 authentic sweet corn cobs and 3 native corn cobs–the kind that is almost tasteless and needs 3 hours to cook. We couldn’t tell through the wrapping. After that incident, we bought our corn cobs from the supermarkets.
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[...] — better!), except for the substitution of chicken for beef. In fact it looked exactly like this, minus the beef. [...]
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[...] put it in almost all of our soup dishes like Tinolang Manok, Sinigang, Ginisang Monggo and even in Nilaga. Good thing we have a Malunggay tree. But aside from fresh Malunggay, I even take Malunggay [...]
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[...] night, I cooked nilagang baka, a total of 1.75 kilos, divided the cooked nilaga into three portions and reserved the third [...]
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Hi! How come this site change? Before they had a next and previous arrow to look for recipe. I don’t see it now. I like browsing the recipes… thanx
They were replaced by the related entries links, vivien.
hi ms. connie,
when you say a whole garlic, as in isang buong ulo ng garlic? ganun kadami? been browsing the recipe and wanted to try out some. m not much of a cook,though…just wanted to please my husband hehehe..thanks!
one whole head of garlic, anna. you want the flavor of the whole garlic in the broth.
using whole heads of garlic and onion will make my life easier. i used to crush or slice them. never used corn my nilaga before but i will try. thanks.
Okay, one more time. When you say an entire garlic, are you including the peel also? Sorry, I am not a cook either and I take directions literally. Unless you state to peel off the outer covering, I am going to put the entire thing right in. Thanks for your time.
cisco, in this recipe, the garlic is unpeeled since you’re not going to eat it — it’s only for flavoring the broth.
can I add more vegetables like cabbage and petchay? my mom used to put lots of vegetable kahit malunggay pwede daw..the more vegetables you put the better…is it true?
pink, yes, you can add more vegetables. cabbage and pechay are traditional. i don’t know about malunggay though.
I’ve eaten something before with saging na saba.
We had this nilaga last Sunday, Connie. I love the slight sweetness the corn cobs gave to the broth. I also added lots of bok choy. Ang sarap!
Wow! I will definitely try to cook this. Nilaga with carrots and corn.