Milanesa and black pepper sauce

This is a common dish in Argentina. It's a thin slice of seasoned meat, coated with breadcrumbs and fried before serving. The kids love to eat this at the foodcourt near the hotel where we stayed.

I bought the seasoned breadcrumbs from the supermarket and I'm very sure that when I took it, I saw it as aji and something else. When I took the packet out this evening, I was surprised to see that it wasn't aji. Instead it was ajo. So instead of 'chili', I bought the 'garlic'-flavoured breadcrumbs. Thank goodness, it turned out yummy and the kids loved it. And I couldn't taste the garlic or parsely taste at all!

I also tried to make my own black pepper sauce because I didn't want to buy the almost expired bottle from a supermarket in Chinatown. The milanesa dish was a back up in case the black pepper sauce failed. Meimei refused to try the sauce; Didi was game but it was a little too peppery for him. Personally, I find it too sour because I added too much lemon. Grinding the black pepper is too much work, next time I shall just buy the grinded black pepper for cooking instead.

The seasoned breadcrumbs



The mini milanesa

I cut the original slice of beef into 3 portions. It costed only about $30 peso (approx S$10) for 500gm of beef.



Ingredients

thinly sliced beef
salt and white pepper
egg white
oil
seasoned breadcrumbs

Method

1. Seasoned the beef with some salt and pepper.
2. Coat the beef with the egg white, then the breadcrumbs. (Use one hand for each so that you don't end up with clumps in the breadcrumbs.)
3. Heat up the oil. Put the coated slices in and fry. The oil should be at the temperature such that the breadcrumbs won't burn and the beef will still become fully cooked.
4. Remove when the crumbs turn golden brown and the beef is thoroughly cooked. Serve warm.

Beef slices with homemade black pepper sauce



Ingredients

1/4 lemon, squeezed (I used 1/2 lemon and it was too too sour)
salt, black pepper and sugar
water
cornflour
beef slices (seasoned with some salt and white pepper)
garlic, finely chopped

Method

1. Mix the lemon juice, salt, black pepper (lots of it), sugar and water together.
2. Heat up a little bit of oil. Stir fry the garlic for a while. Add the beef slices. Fry until there's no more 'juice'.
3. Add the black pepper mixture. Once it boils, taste the sauce and add more pepper/salt/sugar until you're satisfied.
4. Add the cornflour (mixed with cold water) to thicken the sauce. Serve fresh.