Food Focus: Colombian Shredded Beef (Carne Desmechada)

Country Of Origin: The name says it....Colombia

It is unfortunate that we do not have any well-known colombian restaurants in Singapore. Our interest and exposure to colombian food started when a colombian-american friend cooked dinner for us a few years ago. He cooked a stew called Sancocho and served it with rice, chopped parsley and diced avocado. It blew our minds and unfortunately his wallet too. Due to the fact that the bought everything from Cold Storage....the cost of the ingredients came up to a whooping $300.

And so it grew, our interest (or at least for some of us) in colombian food. We were cooking for some friends one night and thought of having a little something with white rice. That was when we decided to have a few simple colombian dishes that will serve well with it. And among these dishes, Carne Desmechada was one of them.

Carne Desmechada

Ingredients:
-1kg frozen beef stew cubes, thawed
-2 red peppers (capsicums), roughly chopped
-around 10 sprigs of spring onions, roughly sliced
-5 cloves garlic
-1 teaspoon cumin
-5 tablespoons vegetable oil
-3 beef stock cubes dissolved in 1 cup hot water (Knorr is the preferred brand)
-2 teaspoons black pepper
-extra salt (if needed) to taste

Place the beef cubes in a large pot and pour enough boiling water to cover. Bring to the boil and allow to simmer for 2 to 3 hours. Or until beef cubes can be easily pierced with a fork. Remove from heat and drain. Shred the beef with 2 forks and set aside. In a deep-dished non stick pan, fry the red peppers, spring onions and garlic with the vegetable oil on medium to low heat until the mixture turns soft and garlic turns golden. Take care not to burn the garlic. Remove from heat, transfer to a bowl and stir in the cumin and black pepper. Give the pan a good wipe. Allow the mixture to cool before pulsing or blending it in a food processor or blender. Remember to keep blending until the mixture becomes a smooth paste. Transfer the spice paste, shredded beef and hot beef stock back into the pan and fry over high heat for about 5 to 7 minutes until the mixture has dried up a little. But not too dry as the beef should look like it has been mixed with a bit of gravy. Remove from heat and serve.