What is mechado?
Mechado is a tomato-based beef stew or braise from the Philippines that’s both savory and tangy. The name mechado comes from an old cooking method called larding—where a strip of pork fat was inserted into the center of lean beef, like a wick (mecha in Spanish), to keep it moist during slow cooking.
What sets it apart from other Filipino tomato-based dishes like kaldereta, afritada, and menudo is the use of soy sauce and citrus in the marinade, along with lean cuts of beef that are slowly braised until tender.