Colombian · Main
Carne Oreada Santandereana
- Intermediate
- 30 min
- roughly 3 of 4 for cost
Leads with char used as punctuation, an earthy, grounding base, on a rich, rounded finish.
Ingredients
- 1.2 kg beef flank, butterflied into a sheet about 1 cm thick
- 30 g coarse salt
- 40 g panela, grated
- 150 ml water
- 20 g garlic, crushed
- 5 g ground cumin
- 3 g coarse black pepper
- 20 ml vegetable oil
Equipment
Grill · Sheet pan · Grater / zester
The skills inside
Grilling over live coalsResting meat & slicing against the grain
Allergen screen
None found among the 14 screened.
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Dissolve the salt and panela in the water with the garlic, cumin and pepper, and turn the sheet of beef through it.
- Lay the sheet flat on a rack over a tray and dry it uncovered in the fridge, and only in the fridge, for 24 hours to 36 hours, turning it once, until the surface is matte and tacky and the sheet has stiffened but still bends. 600 min
- Cut it into hand-sized pieces and rub them lightly with the oil.
- Grill over hot coals, about 2 minutes a side, until the edges are dark and crisp and the middle reads 63C (145F). 2 min
- Rest it 5 minutes and cut across the grain. 5 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Resting meat & slicing against the grain 56 recipes
- It came off the heat BEFORE the target temperature, measured with a probe rather than by time, because carryover keeps driving the inside up after it is out.
- The probe went into the coldest likely part rather than the easiest one to reach: the reading that matters is the lowest one, not the first one.
- Rested for a time matched to its size, somewhere warm, and not cut into partway through to see how it is doing.
- The board is nearly dry when it is finally cut. A spreading pool means it was cut too early, and that liquid should have stayed inside.
- The grain was found and the knife went ACROSS it, so the fibres are cut short, and the blade was sharp enough that the slices hold together rather than tearing.
Where it goes wrong It was cut straight off the heat, usually because everything else was ready. The muscle is still contracted and the juice still driven to the centre, so it runs out onto the board; the meat is drier than it ever needed to be, and the flavour that left it is sitting in a puddle under the knife.
Grilling over live coals 77 recipes
- The fire was ready before the food was: coals evenly covered in grey ash with no flames licking through and no raw smoke coming off, and a hot zone and a cooler one both available.
- The grate was hot and clean when the food landed, and the food released cleanly from it when the time came to turn rather than tearing away.
- Marks are browned, not burnt: deep colour where the metal touched, with no carbon flaking off and no soot transferred onto the food.
- The interior reaches its target with a thin gradient, not charred outside and cold within, and not driven through by a flare-up.
- What comes off the fire smells of fire and food only: no raw wood smoke, no fuel, nothing acrid at the back of the nose.
Where it goes wrong It went on over live flames instead of settled coals, so the outside charred bitter in the flare-ups while the middle stayed cold, and everything on the plate tastes of soot.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Cabernet Sauvignon or Malbec
- Also Right
- Tempranillo (Rioja Reserva)
- From the Taps
- Amber ale
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling water, make room
Tannin binds to seared protein and fat: each bite softens the wine, each sip resets the palate: the steakhouse equation.
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