To the point, TAPA is a simple recipe of marinating the toughest slices of beef, carabao meat, or horse meat – and even Wallabees (bottom round, top round, chuck, and if you are wealthy and filthy rich, yes, even the sirloin) for a couple of reasons: 1) To impart a delicate flavor and taste to an otherwise tough cut of beef and 2) to tenderize the meat and preserve it for the rainy season.

The recipe includes several fresh garlic bulbs (peeled and diced), sugarcane vinegar 5% acidity, cracked peppercorns, and kosher salt. Simple marinade. No preservatives except the acidity of the vinegar. It is in the drying process that the TAPA is preserved. The most important aspect of the recipe is in the way you cut the meat. Slice the meat WITH THE GRAIN, making them into no less than 1/4 inch thick strips, about 3 fingers wide per piece. Cover all the meat with the marinade. On a daily basis, keep turning the meat in the marinade.

Of course refrigerating the marinated meat is necessary specially if you live in warmer, much more humid climes. Keep the meat in the marinade for about 5 days at most. Before drying the strips in the full sun, drip them using the oven racks with newspaper liners to remove excess marinade. DO NOT TURN ON THE OVEN. Notice that the pieces of meat will begin to caramelize (appear shiny on the surface). Take a hefty skewer (asador) and pierce several beef strips into the skewer leaving room between the pieces for air circulation. Hang the skewers with the beef pieces in the clothesline or somewhere in your lanai or patio.

Allow the meat to cure for 3 days. Gather and bag them and keep them in the refrigerator ready for frying and consumption. By the way, cut the long strips into 2-inch long tapa strips for better and quicker frying. Do not burn and use only a little oil and moderate heat.

Epilogue: The other recipes that suggest cooking the pieces of “raw” quickly marinated pieces of beef with a little water first and then allowing it to sautee afterwards… well, no wonder you are using cuts like sirloin, Delmonico, Loin strips, rib-eye and all that expensive stuff. In this case what you are preparing is NOT BEEF TAPA. It is a variation of Korean Bulkogi using tender cuts of meat – which is delicious mind you, but not pure BEEF TAPA from Ilocandia.

My father used to make “beef tapa” as Mr. Ernie Bautista does. Father stretches the thinly sliced beef as far as it could go with pins on a wood board before sundrying it covered with plastic. Best with fried rice dipped in local vinegar with garlic and hot chili!