Nilagang baka (beef nilaga) is one of those Filipino dishes that are such a pleasure to eat. From sipping the broth to chewing the tender meat, eating it with rice, and topping with saba (banana) and pechay, you could find yourself feasting on rich flavors, especially if you add a few drops of patis (fish sauce) with sili.
Whenever my father would cook it, I remember Sunday lunch when I was young in our previous house in Cabuyao, a town in Laguna where we can see the goddess mountain Makiling whenever we play patintero or moro-moro in the streets when we were still living in a subdivision called El Sol. After playing in the morning, we would all sit to savor the huge bowl of nilagang baka (if not sinigang), with beef cooked for a long time to extract the goodness in every fiber.
Only my father cooks well in our family, truth be told, and I find it heart-warming that my cousins, relatives, and neighbors would also look forward to having a taste of his cooking whenever there’s an event, like a birthday or baptismal, and Papa’s the assigned cook.
Let’s go celebrate good home-cooked Filipino food this weekend, with extra rice, please.