Milanesa de res (Breaded beef) Recipe

By: Dazahel Ochoa

Photo provided by the owner, Azael R. Campos

Growing up in a family restaurant, Cocina Economica "DARY," allowed me to try various plates while still young. Even though I had many options to choose from, like Caldo de res(beef broth), mole(sauce), Chiles Rellenos(stuffed chili), etc., the plate that stuck out to me the most was milanesa de res(breaded beef), and this has been my go-to dish every time I go and visit the restaurant. While growing up, I had always thought that milanesa was a well-known dish in Mexico. I felt this was true because most of the time I ate at the restaurant, I saw many people getting this dish. Another reason is that the milanesa de res was usually sold out before 3 pm. However, this dish was not a popular Mexican dish, contrary to my belief. The milanesa de res is not even an authentic Mexican dish. As mentioned in the journal by M.D Juarez, he says that the milanesa it's a typical Argentine dish. In addition to this, a study done by Edgar Rojas-Rivas shows that the milanesa de res is not even in the top 30 most known plates in Mexico.

Despite its lack of popularity in Mexico, in my hometown, the community that supports my father's business has always been fond of this plate. My father has told me that this restaurant changed from being a traditional cocina economica to a unique restaurant because of all this support from the community. These cocinas economicas are a specific type of restaurant. Such restaurants are known for selling food for a low price and following a schedule for every meal. However, Cocina Economica "DARY," instead of following a schedule, serves the milanesa de res during the entire day. This change took place because the community loved the milanesa so much that they asked my father to serve it regardless of the time of the day. Therefore, allowing this dish to become a staple of the restaurant. This decision to keep the milanesa allowed the restaurant to be successful as most of the customers were recurrent customers who came to the restaurant to eat this dish.

As you can see, this dish has been very crucial to why my father's restaurant has been successful. For this reason, I wanted to share the recipe that has helped my family so much in hopes of allowing other people to taste what has allowed this business to be successful for over 20 years.

Ingredients:

For 8 pieces of milanesa

* 2½ lbs pulpa bola (beef top round)

* ¼ galletas saladas (saltine crackers)

* 3 huevos (eggs)

* 25 g pimienta negra (black pepper)

* 25 g ajo molido (garlic)

* ¼ leche (milk)

* 1 L aceite (oil)

Process:

1)The first thing you want to do is get the milk, the eggs, the black pepper, and the garlic into a container and mix them, and then let it marinate for about 30 minutes.

2)While you wait for the mix to marinate, crumble the saltine crackers, cut the beef into slices, put the oil into the frying pan, and put it on medium-high heat; just make sure the oil is hot before placing the pieces.

3)After you let the mix marinate, put a beef slice and let it soak in the mixture for about a minute. After that, add the beef slice into the crumble crackers to cover both sides. Something done in the restaurant is that once the beef slice is completely covered in the crackers, you can use a rolling pin to make the piece larger and easier to consume.

4)Once the slice is completely covered in the crackers, add the piece into the frying pan for about 2-4 minutes on each side of the portion. You’ll know that the slice is finished once you see the golden brown color.

The last thing you can do is to accompany this plate with some Ensalada de Lechuga( lettuce salad), papas fritas (potato chips), frijoles Fritos (refried beans), Arroz(rice), the drink that you want; I recommend some water like agua de horchata( horchata water) or agua de jamaica (jamaica’s water), and enjoy the meal.

Photo provided by the owner, Azael R. Ochoa.

Reflection:

I decided to go with a recipe blog in the remediation because I wanted to expand on how important this dish is to the family restaurant. Although I mostly talked about what it meant for a restaurant to be authentic in my paper, I always brought up the point that even though the restaurant, Cocina Economica "DARY," didn't meet the word's definition, it was still an authentic Mexican restaurant. To emphasize this point, I talked about the most popular dish in the restaurant, that dish being the milanesa de res (breaded beef), and how this was not a traditional dish from Mexico, this being the main argument as to why it may not be authentic.

That is why I did the recipe blog, as it allowed me to explain more in detail the importance of the dish to the restaurant's success. In the introduction of my recipe blog, I tried to talk more in detail about the plate and how popular it is for the restaurant, as I mentioned how it usually sold out before 3 pm. In addition, I wanted to emphasize how much the community has affected the restaurant by describing how cocinas economicas are and how much this restaurant has changed from these restaurants, all because of the community. Lastly, the recipe blog allowed me to focus more on the dish and even provide an image of the plate to allow the readers to see the dish that has affected this restaurant so much.

Therefore I felt that doing the recipe blog just allowed me to be more personal with the topic and better describe how this dish has genuinely changed the restaurant for the better and consequently allowed the reader to see how much a dish can impact a restaurant as a whole.