I’ve only tried to make this recipe once before and love it!  The first time was a semi-success, despite how half of the stuffing came out and the sense of nervousness upon trying out what looked to be a complicated dish.  This time I felt less nervous about making this dish and also bought a slightly larger flank steak.  With all baking aside, one thing you will learn about my style in cooking is that I don’t quite measure anything.  As long as I have all the right ingredients, and even if I didn’t, I just go with the flow of things.  I like to experiment with taste as I imagine most home cooks like me do.  Thus on this note, below is my personal recipe for this classic Filipino dish.

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

-2 lbs Beef Flank Steak

-1/4 lb beef liver (You can use a small can of liver pate or similar for a substitute), chopped

-2 large eggs, hard boiled and cut with an egg cutter

-2 cloves fresh garlic, finely chopped

-1 cup diced onions

-1 cup diced bell peppers

-1 small box raisins

-1 small jar diced pimento

-dash of salt and ground pepper for seasoning

-1 can diced tomatoes

-cooking twine

Directions:

• Lay the flank steak flat on a cutter board or similar, clean surface
• Gather all of your ingredients (mise en place) and one by one, lay all of your ingredients together in a similar manner you would lay out ingredients when making pizza.
• Carefully roll the flank steak from one end to the other.  You will have some ingredients that will fall out, regardless of the flank steak size.
• Cut a long piece of cooking twine and slip it under the meat 3 times horizontally, then three times vertically approximately
• In a large baking pan, lay out the beef morcon in the middle and cover with 1 can diced tomatoes
• Bake at 375 degrees F for approximately 30-40 minutes depending on your oven temperature and altitude.  We live the in Sierra Foothills so everything, for the most part, cooks about 10 minutes faster.
• Take the beef morcon and place it onto a cutting board.  Let it cool for about 5 minutes before cutting so the juices will remain intact for a bit.  Serve with white rice.  For this particular recipe, I tried to experiment with a wild rice mix.  Kain Na Tayo! (Let’s Eat! in Tagalog)–gcc

Grace Note:

You can deglaze the remaining sauce from the baking pan to give it a thicker consistency.  You can also enhance its flavors by adding the filling that fall off from the meat as you cut it, as well as, a bit more herbs, spices and a clove of freshly chopped garlic.  Waste not is my goal!