Bistik ~ Indonesian styled Steak

When we're talking about Indonesian home cooked dishes, apart from local dishes, most of Indonesian that I know will know bistik. It's originally a Dutch dish (it must be, the word itself gives the implication). From generation to generation, the recipe varies and each household will definitely carry different recipe. But, essentially, the taste shouldn't be too far off between recipes. The dish itself is usually comprised of sliced marinated slices of meat, then either deep fried or pan fried and served with fried potato wedges and boiled carrots and green beans.

Most bistik is made from beef, but there are some made from pork as well. The difference? It's in the sauce. Beef bistik has stronger and sharper flavor compared to its pork counterpart. What I like? Pork bistik using beef bistik sauce because the thing about beef is that it's harder to cook and you often end up with over-cooked and tough beef. When I went to Sumber Hidangan in Bandung, they serve their bistik a bit differently. They're using beef and pork patties instead of the slice meat,which is I find it interesting because it looks like Japanese Hamburger Steak (pic below):



It gives me an idea, what if I use what I usually make for my Hamburger Steak but instead of the troublesome to make demiglace sauce (unless you're using canned ones), I just use bistik sauce instead, shouldn't be difficult right? Yep, it's super easy.

*yield about 5 person

What you need:
1 pack Hamburger Helper (the Japanese one, NOT the Western one)
300 gr Pork (best is 50-50 of beef and pork --> the pack will indicate to use 250gr, but it's OK to add more)
1 no Onion (half thinly sliced for sauce and half finely chopped)
200 gr carrots, cut 4cm block
200 gr green beans, cut 4cm long
5 no potatoes, cut wedges
Sauce seasonings: butter, sweet soya sauce, Worchestire sauce, sugar, pepper

How to:

1.     Steam carrot and green beans and set aside. You can also microwave them, cling wrap the tuppleware and poke some holes on it and micro for 1-2 minutes for green beans and 3-4 minutes for carrots. Alternatively, you can boil them as well (I don't really fancy boiling veggies because you tend to loose the nutrients).

2.     Deep fry the potato wedges and set aside.

3.     Follow Hamburger Helper recipe (My version below may not be the exact translation on what's in the pack)

1.     In a bowl, soak the Hamburger Helper with 120ml (1/2 cup) water for about 5 minutes.

2.     Add on meat and onion in this case, and mix them until firm and well mixed (should take about 4-5 minutes) and make patties. It should results in 5 patties weighing about 100gr each.

3.     Pan fried those patties until well done.

4.     Sauce: After cooking the patties, in the same pan, add on butter. Saute the sliced onion until cooked and fragrant. Add on all the sauce seasonings to your taste. After you get the taste that you like, bring the sauce to boil and you're done.

5.     Assemble: On a plate, with the patty in the middle, line up your veggies and pour in the sauce.

* I don't use potatoes for my picture because I eat my bistik with rice :D.

Tips:
Storage: You can freeze your cut carrots and greenbeans and steam them as you need them. You can also freeze your hamburger patties as well and pan-fry them when you like the have them.
If you don't have Hamburger Helper, you can make your own Hamburger Helper by mixing:

1. Breadcrumbs (the softer type, not the panko type) (about 50-70 gr)
2. Seasoning: salt, sugar, paper and herbs (if you like --> it can be dried or freshly chopped herbs)
3. Chopped onion

Enjoy!