Bitoque (Portuguese Steak with a Fried Egg)
- Prep
- 10 min
- Total
- 25 min
- Servings
- 2
Bitoque is the quickest, most Portuguese plate there is. It’s on the menu of nearly every tasca, café and beer hall in the country, and it’s the safe choice for thousands of people every day.
The name comes from “bife” (steak), and the dish took its own shape as a steak with a fried egg on top, fried garlic and a pan sauce. It became the daily special of the tascas in the 1970s and 80s and never left the menu.
Recipe
Bitoque
The dish everyone orders at tascas and beer halls: a beef steak fried with garlic and bay leaf, a fried egg on top and the sauce from the pan. Simple and always good.
Ingredients
Method
- 1Pound the steaks lightly with a meat mallet to break the fibers so they're tender, without tearing them. Season with freshly ground black pepper and the torn bay leaves. Don't add salt yet: salting beef before frying dries it out.
- 2In a wide frying pan, heat a layer of oil (or lard, for a more traditional flavor) and a drizzle of olive oil with the crushed garlic until very hot.
- 3Fry the potato sticks in a separate fryer or pan until crisp.
- 4Put the steaks in the very hot pan and fry for about 1 to 2 minutes per side, depending on thickness, so they're seared outside and pink inside. Move them to a plate, season with coarse salt now and keep them covered.
- 5In the same pan, with the fat and garlic still in it, pour in the white wine and stir with a wooden spoon, scraping up everything stuck to the bottom. Let the alcohol cook off for 1 minute.
- 6Turn off the heat. Add the mustard, the butter and the juices the steaks released on the plate. Stir hard until the butter melts into a dark, glossy sauce.
- 7Fry the eggs in a separate pan with olive oil or oil, keeping the yolks runny and letting the edges of the whites crisp up. Season the eggs with fine salt.
- 8Put a steak on each plate and pour plenty of sauce over it. Lay a fried egg on top of the steak, "a cavalo" (on horseback). Serve with the fries, kept out of the sauce so they stay crisp, white rice, and bread for the sauce.
The secret is the pan
Take the steak out as soon as it’s done and make the sauce in the same pan, where the browned juices of the meat are stuck to the bottom. Stir fast, scraping the bottom, and pour the sauce over the steak.
Keeping the steak tender
Speed. A very hot pan, 1 to 2 minutes per side to form a crust, and the steak comes out to rest while you make the sauce. Never let it simmer in the sauce, or it turns tough.
