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My auntie used to make this for me and Mom after we got home from school and work. As it simmers, it turns into the richest sour, salty broth with meat that falls off the bones and wilted leafy greens.

One note about ingredients: When it comes to kinds of onions, potatoes, etc. just get the good ol’ kind (yellow onion, russet potatoes, etc.). This ain’t no fancy dish. Also, sorry if all the exposition is annoying. But you can cut and paste and edit, right?

Ingredients

• 1 package beef neck (Usually three or four pieces of neck about 2 inches wide and 7 inches long. I’m guessing a pound and a half?)
• 1 or 2 tbsp. vegetable oil
• Salt and pepper
• 10 cups water
• 1 package Knorr’s Tamarind Soup Base (aka Sinigang Sa Sampalok Mix, available from Asian markets or online)
• 4 or 5 tomatoes, quartered (Or more if you like. They dissolve into the broth and make it delish.)
• 1 onion, julienned (I don’t actually vary my cutting angle, it’s just important to cut from root to tip rather than across.)
• 4 or 5 cloves of garlic, sliced (No razor blade required, 3 mm slices are fine)
• 2 inch piece of ginger, sliced
• 1 or 2 potatoes, halved the long way and then sliced into 1-inch pieces
• Fresh green beans, a large handful, trimmed. Cut into bite size if you don’t care to eat Flip style.
• Leafy greens, a bunch or as much as will fit in the pot. (Kangkong is preferred; it’s a Filipino veggie like spinach but without that dry feeling and the leaves are longer and skinnier. Some people use spinach which I haven’t tried yet – worried about that dry feeling. Lately I’ve been using sliced Chinese cabbage which works fairly well but isn’t as green as I’d like. Sliced bok choi is good, too.)

Cooking

1. Salt and pepper the beef neck all over. Heat vegetable oil over medium-high in a dutch oven or big soup pot until it starts to smoke. Brown beef necks on all sides you can, 4 to 5 minutes each side.
2. Pour the water into the pot, add soup base and stir. Add the tomatoes, onions, garlic and ginger and some more pepper. There’s more than enough salt in the soup base.
3. Turn down the heat and simmer – ideally for 3 or 4 hours. If you’re pressed for time just make sure the beef is cooked all the way and proceed to step 4.
4. 30 minutes before serving add potatoes and green beans.
5. 15 minutes before serving add leafy greens. Maybe a bit more pepper. We like this dish spicy.
6. Serve in a bowl with steamed rice on a plate.

Eating

• Spoon soup over rice and eat with fork and spoon (Flip style). This means spoon in the right hand, fork in the left. Back of fork pushes food onto spoon.
• To cut greens, meat, etc. into manageable pieces turn fork and spoon upside down. Use fork to spear while spoon pulls off yummy bits that will fit.
• Also use spoon as usual to grab extra broth and small yummies in bowl as needed.
• This keeps in Tupperware in the fridge fabulously and gets better the longer it sits. The best bowl is the last, with all the garlic and ginger chunks and pepper bits at the bottom.
• Give your doggie the bones. They’ll love you.

I ran 10 miles this past Saturday! (View my route.) There’s an intense hill in there that goes on for a couple miles. That was kind of fun, actually. My left knee started to give out around mile 8 and I ended up having to walk limp the last mile. I finished 20 minutes behind everyone else and the team was ready to send out cars to look for me by the time I made it back. D’oh! However, that knee lasted 2 miles longer than the previous week so maybe it’ll continue to get better.

After the run, I iced the knee for a bit and went to Phil’s sushi birthday lunch. The whole gang was there and it was a lot of fun to see people. Directly afterwards us Burners met up at Cathy’s house for a meeting to organize our finances. I continued to ice the knee and was in pretty good shape for the drive back home.

Sitting in the car for 4 hours was probably not a very good thing to do, however. When I finally made it to Rick’s house that night, my legs and feet were as swollen as if I had sat in an airplane for a trip to the Philippines. The next morning, I got out of bed and almost fell over because my feet had stiffened solid! Stretching helped some but a one-hour full-body massage that evening helped even more. The massage therapist said she’d never felt quadriceps that tight before.

Monday I was back to school and work. This week has been so crazy – everything seemed to go wrong and I had my midterm drawing portfolio due along with two major projects. Right now, I’m so grateful that it’s over and I have a nice, long weekend to relax and NOT drive to LA again.

Also, my auntie (who had emergency surgery for an aneurysm) has been moved out of Critical Care and into the Step Down unit. She’s off the ventilator that they had to put her on when she crashed last week and is on oxygen. Thank goodness. Send some good thoughts/prayers her way if you can.