Second Recipe -- Bistec a la Criolla

First I want to thank everyone who posted on the beans!!! It was extremely helpful and I will be taking ALL advice into consideration. Also thank you to the two comments on the tomatillos!!!! Love the help. It is greatly needed

As for the Pierogi question -- I passed that along to my mom and she will be getting back to you with some advice for the dough....I am definitely not the person to ask for cooking advice (unless you want a new kitchen ... LOL)

OK for my second recipe it comes from Colombia and from the cookbook "Secrets of Colombian Cooking" by Patricia McCausland - Gallo. It was an awesome recipe and easy to follow. I will let you know what I did and what the ingredients are....

FYI it is a long list of ingredients and I did get a little bit intimidated -- but don't let it scare you....If I can do it you definitely can too :)

For anyone that doesn't read Spanish -- it translates into Creole Beefsteak.

Ingredients:

3lbs skirt steak
2 tablespoons of oil
2 tablespoons of prepared mustard
2 cloves of garlic
2 whole bay leaves
1 tablespoon minced cilantro
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds (could not find so I improvised with regular cumin spice)
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Hogao del Caribe = tomato and onion sauce

4 tablespoons of olive oil
1 1/2 diced onion
1 cup peeled and diced tomatoes, seeds included (I again improvised and used the canned stuff)
2 tablespoons of aji (sweet green pepper) used a regular green pepper
2 bay leaves
1 1/2 teaspoons of cilantro
1 tablespoon of chopped scallion
1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of sugar (left this out)
1/4 teaspoon of pepper

Outstanding:

1. I placed the beef in a nonreactive container and because I did not realize I had to leave the rub on overnight -- I did it for two hours. It worked -- we had no complaints -- however -- the taste would probably have been more flavorful if we put it on overnight.

The rub included the oil, mustard, garlic, bay leaves, cilantro, cumin and pepper.

2. After leaving the rub on for two hours I sauteed the beef.

Since I have no skills doing that simultaneously, my husband worked on the sauce. He cooked the onions first and then added the everything else...he cooked for about six minutes and then he simmered it while he was waiting for me to finish with the beef.

We served it over rice but you could probably serve it with any type of starch, potato, yucca etc.

This was a four star recipe and I give the author major points for letting me cook such a superb meal. If anyone cooks this let me know how it comes out --- good luck :)