We're having our monthly Men's meeting at the church tonight and we always bring some type of "man food" to share. (ie; don't bring quiche, salads, etc...) Anyhow, last month I made some awesome venison chili and since the weather in uncooperative for chili again I decided to do something different.
I've spent a lot of time in the Caribbean in my past service in the Coast Guard and developed a taste for Cuban, Puerto Rican, Jamaican, etc food. I decided to pay homage to that and make some Bistec Empanizado or Cuban Breaded Steak. I didn't have a recipe so I looked one up on the internet. It's normally used for beef of course but I'm using 3lbs of venison backstrap.
This is the recipe I'm using but I doubled it:
Bistec Empanizado
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes
Total time: 30 minutes
Yield: 4 servings
Lightly breaded steak with the tang of citrus, garlic, and cilantro.
INGREDIENTS:
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup sour orange juice (Substitute 2 parts orange, 1 part lemon, 1 part lime juice)
1 lime (juice only)
2 tablespoons vinegar
1 medium onion, chopped fine
1 1/2 pounds sirloin steak (about 6 ounces per serving)
1 cup cracker meal
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 egg whites, beaten
1/2 cup Chopped fresh cilantro
3 tablespoons Olive oil for sautéing
Mix olive oil, sour orange, lime juice, vinegar, and chopped onion to make a mojo marinade. Add un-pounded beef steaks, cover, and marinate for 20 minutes. Remove steaks from marinade and using a meat mallet, place the steaks between two pieces of wax paper and pound out to a thickness of 1/4 inch. (This also helps infuse the meat with the marinade.) Return steaks to marinade.
If you are in a hurry, proceed with remaining steps. Otherwise, refrigerate and continue marinating for one to four hours. (For more flavor.) In a medium bowl, combine cracker meal, garlic powder, and salt.
Remove beef, save marinade. Dip wet beef in egg whites, then dip in cracker mixture, coating well on both sides. Sauté to desired doneness in olive oil. (We like ours rare!) Remove from pan and place on plate. Use some of the reserved marinade (with the onions!) to deglaze the frying pan. Cook at high heat stirring constantly until onions are cooked and the sauce reduces somewhat.
Pour sauce over steaks and sprinkle with chopped cilantro and freshly ground black pepper.
Here are a few pictures. I post more when I'm done with it.
Sounds awesome..... I'm hungry
Man that looks good.
Well the finished product turned out good but I had to make a modification to the original recipe. It says to use olive oil to fry the meat in. It just smoked too much so I switched it to canola oil. It would probably be even better with peanut oil. All in all thought everything tasted great :>) They were all eaten. I also made some fried plantains (tostones) to go with it and my buddy brought black beans and yellow rice.
Oh, also with the "sauce" it calls for by using the marinade to deglaze the frying pan, I used some flour, more garlic, salt & plenty of pepper to make a loose rue. I then added a little milk & water for some awesome gravy (or if you want to be fancy...sauce) to pour over the steaks. Actually it turned out a bit like country fried steak but it had a citrusy Cuban kind of taste. For more of that you may want to add more lemon or lime juice for tartness to the marinade or just grab a bottle or two of the Mojo they sell at Publix.
