Except for Batangas cattle, there isn’t much livestock to provide for the daily meat requirements in the country.
This is just one of the juicy tidbits I discovered recently during a tasting session held in connection with the "A Taste of Australia" beef and wine promotion jointly sponsored by the Australian Trade Commission in Manila and Meat and Livestock Australia.
As our little group hopped from one restaurant to another in busy Malate – it was after all the eve of Halloween – we learned much about beef… Aussie beef, that is. Did you know that each Australian eats around 35.4 kilos of beef a year, and that 80 percent of this consumption is in the form of beef and veal? That’s a lot compared to the 2-plus kilos of beef Filipinos consume in a year. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
First stop was at Sala, where we were met by its chef-patron Collin Mackay. For starters, we were served porchini grilled Australian beef blade crostini with Parmesan, rocket and white truffle oil. That’s a long name for a simple steak sandwich. But as chef Collin pointed out, it is in the way the different flavors complement each other where the beauty of a gourmet dinner lies. In this case, the sweet earthy taste of the mushrooms goes well with the lean beef slices. The name of the wine paired with the appetizer escapes me now, but it was light and augured well for the evening.
Read the recipe’s name again and you should notice something odd about the beef. Beef blade?
Meat and Livestock Australia’s Agnes Itchon told me during the course of dinner that MLA and the Australia Trade Commission recently gathered some of the country’s chefs and cooks to familiarize them with the different cuts of beef. The seminar also showed them some innovative cuts of beef most chefs wouldn’t consider using for dinner. Yes, beef blade is one of them, as well as beef rump, which was used in preparing the steak course at Mil Novecientos.
We hopped over to People’s Palace next door for another light appetizer, the intriguingly named Thai grilled Australian beef salad. This dish might not be authentic Thai, but the spices used were. Chef Collin held back on the chilies, but there was enough coriander leaves and kaffir lime juice to remind you of the dish’s provenance. The grilled beef slices were a juicy addition, giving the tongue time to rest before the next bite of spice. The wine served, Tyrell’s Old Winery Pinot Noir, was more mature and helped relax the tongue from the bite of spice.
The evening’s first entrée, Australian strip loin with blue cheese sauce on a bed of rosti potatoes, was served at Patio Guernica. The restaurant’s Spanish ambience was a change from the contempo ambience at Sala and People’s Palace, and the service was just as impeccable as I remember it.
The blue cheese added a lively finish to the tender strip loin slices. The wine was served generously, although I slowed down on the intake. There’s no point getting drunk this early in the night.
We moved on to Mil Novecientos next door. A pre-Halloween party outside the restaurant was just getting started and its frenzy infected us as we got ready for the dinner’s last course, Australian grilled beef steak with grain mustard sauce. The mustard sauce, Dijon, of course, woke my taste buds, and before I could have a swig or two of the Riddoch Shiraz, the steak was all gone.
Just as I was lamenting the steak’s absence – there should have been more of it – we were served dessert, what else but Claude’s Dream, the house signature sweet. It was divine as it has always been and over cups of coffee we all reminisced about the night’s dinner.
If you, too, would like to try the best of Australian beef and wine, MLA and Austrade’s Taste of Australia beef and wine promotion is ongoing until Nov. 30 at the following restaurants: Azzurro Bistro & Bar; Bianca’s; Carpaccio Ristorante Italiano; Café Ysabel; Chateau 1771; L’Incontro; Ilustrado Restaurant; Lé Soufflé The Fort; Lé Soufflé Bistro; Mario’s Restaurant (Ortigas); Mario’s Restaurant (Tomas Morato); Mil Novecientos Tapas Bar & Restaurant; Old Swiss Inn; Patio Guernica; People’s Palace; Portico; Restaurant 9501; Sala Restaurant; Santi’s Delicatessen; Shangri-La’s Mactan Island Resort; Top of the Citi; and Zucchini’s Grill and Vinotek.
All meals ordered from the Australian menu entitle diners to join a raffle for a trip to Australia, plus two nights’ stay at the new Shangri-La Hotel in Sydney. The restaurant where the winning diner ordered the meal also gets a free ticket to Australia.
The promotion is a partnership between the Australian Trade Commission in Manila and Meat and Livestock Australia, in cooperation with Tuckerbag Inc., Werdenberg Corp., Australian Wine and Food Company and Zen Asia.
4 x 200 g. Australian striploin
10 ml. olive oil
20 g. chopped onions
30 g. wild mushrooms
100 ml. beef stock
100 ml. blue cheese (puree)
100 ml. cooking cream
5 g. tarragon
salt and pepper
Garnish:
200 g. rosti potatoes
10 g. olive oil
20 g. Emmenthal cheese
Season the striploin, place in the pan with hot olive oil until done. Sauté onion, mushroom and blue cheese for one minute and deglaze with beef stock and reduce by half. Blend all together, finish with cream and tarragon. Slice the steak and serve it on a bed of rosti potatoes with green asparagus.