The dish that I would like to introduce in this article became popular lately in a higher price restaurant. It’s beef tallow fried rice. Restaurants that specialize in beef use expensive and tasty beef, so they want to use all of what they buy! They have turned the excess fat trimmed from the beef, what some places might discard, into an amazing new dish. In Bangkok, it has been a hit among beef lovers.
I remember having beef tallow fried rice for the first time at a fusion Thai-western food restaurant. Since then, I have been looking for a chance to have more. The fried rice tastes similar to garlic fried rice, but it is richer in aroma from the beef fat and smokiness from the wok. There are different ways restaurants serve this dish. Some serve the beef as a steak on top of the rice. Some cook and mix the beef cubes with the fried rice. Then there are the toppings. There could be crispy fried duck egg on top of the rice. Some have crispy garlic slices and green onion for garnishing. The fried rice and the beef themselves are good. The egg and the crispy garlic slices make it even BETTER!
This dish also reminds me of a rice bowl my mother used to make for me, many times throughout my childhood. It was a fried beef jerky (preserved beef Thai style) rice bowl. At that time we lived in a small town north of Bangkok. She usually got the raw beef jerky from the market and cooked it for our breakfast. Fried beef jerky with rice was my comfort breakfast. My mother fried the beef slices and set them aside. Then she took a bowl of white rice and stirred it in the pan that she cooked the beef. The beef oil with all the flavors covered every grain of hot white rice. There was brown liquid from the beef mixing in the oil. That part was considered the tastiest! She didn’t make fried rice, just mixed rice with beef flavored oil. It was a simple meal I remember it so well when I think of myself as my mother’s little daughter. That might be the reason why I also love the beef fried rice. It reminds me of my mother’s food.
Fried beef jerky (preserved beef Thai style). Photo credit: เนื้อเค็มทอด(ไม่ตากแดด) แบบนุ่ม ๆ หนา ๆ by ครัวตุ๊กตา
Where can you get beef tallow? There are suppliers selling the beef tallow jars online, very easy to find but it is easy to make at home as well. In order to extract the beef tallow, simply cook the beef fat on medium-low on the stove until the liquid oil comes out. After getting the oil, leave it until it cools down. Then store it in a jar for future use. Or, I found it is easy to keep the tallow in a zip lock bag. I leave it out until it solidifies. I transfer it to the zip lock bag, seal and flatten the bag, then use a flat edge to press down and separate it into several small square blocks before freezing. That way I can break off and use the small portion I need.
Beef tallow fried rice
Ingredients
- Beef marinade
- ¼ lb beef (I use sirloin steak in the video)
- ½ tsp fish sauce
- ½ tsp oyster sauce
- Fried rice
- 1 tbsp beef tallow
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 cup cooked, refrigerated rice
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- ½ tsp Fish sauce
- A pinch of sugar
- A pinch of pepper
- Green onion for garnish
How to make beef tallow fried rice
- Peel and wash the garlic. Then slice one clove of garlic thin for making crispy garlic. Chop another two cloves of garlic for fried rice. Chop green onion for garnish.
- Add fish sauce and oyster sauce to marinate the beef. Poke holes in the meat with a fork to help quick marinade.
- Melt the beef tallow on the pan, using medium heat. Then lower the heat and add garlic slices. Stir from time to time until the color changes to light yellow. Remove the garlic from heat and set it aside.
- On medium heat, cook the marinated beef to your preference of doneness. Set aside to rest.
- Add chopped garlic into the pan and turn up to high. Stir until the garlic turns yellowish then add rice and other condiments, soy sauce, fish sauce, and sugar. Then stir fry until the rice is evenly coated.
- Slice the beef and plate it on top of the rice bowl.
- Garnish with crispy garlic, green onion, and a pinch of pepper (optional).
Tip
Many of you may know already but I will mention again to make sure that you use refrigerated rice for fried rice. If you use hot rice, the rice will be overcooked before you finish stir frying. It will end up sticking together as a rice ball. The rice doesn’t need to be refrigerated overnight, I only refrigerated the rice for 2 hours.
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All photos Copyright 2023 Premmarin Milindasuta All Rights Reserved
