Colombian · Main
Sobrebarriga a la Criolla
- Advanced
- 40 min
- roughly 3 of 4 for cost
Leads with an earthy, grounding base, char used as punctuation, fading in warm spice.
Ingredients
- 1.4 kg sobrebarriga (beef flank or navel end), in one piece with the fat cap on
- 330 ml pale lager
- 1 onion, sliced
- 3 cebolla larga (spring onions), chopped
- 5 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 carrot, sliced
- 2 bay leaves
- 3 g ground cumin
- 500 g ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped
- 60 ml oil
- 40 g fine dry breadcrumbs
- salt and black pepper
Equipment
Grill
The skills inside
Dry-pan toasting: spices, seeds and nuts
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · alcohol
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
- Season the meat and brown the fat cap hard in a dry heavy pan until it is mahogany and the pan is loud, then turn it once.
- Add the beer, onion, garlic, carrot, bay and cumin, top up with water to just cover, and hold below a simmer with the surface barely trembling until a skewer slides in and out without lifting the meat, close to three hours.
- Let it cool in its own liquid, then lift it out and blot the surface completely dry.
- Meanwhile cook the tomato and spring onion in the oil over low heat until the tomato has collapsed and a slick of red oil pools at the rim of the pan, then season it.
- Spread that sauce over the fat cap, dust with breadcrumbs and grill close to the element until the top blisters and darkens in patches.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Dry-pan toasting: spices, seeds and nuts 70 recipes
- A single layer on dry metal with nothing added: no fat, and nothing else sharing the pan or the tray and competing for the heat.
- It is kept moving: shaken, stirred, or turned. Anything left still scorches on the face touching the metal while the rest of it is barely warm.
- It is judged by smell before sight: once it is fragrant there are seconds left, not minutes, and the nose reaches that point well before the colour does.
- It leaves the pan the instant it is done, onto a cold surface. A hot pan keeps toasting whatever stays in it, and carryover here is the difference between done and ruined.
- The colour is even and light rather than patchy, with nothing black at the edges: one scorched piece taints the whole quantity it is ground into.
Where it goes wrong It was left alone for a moment while something else was attended to. Dry heat has no margin: the pieces against the metal go from fragrant to acrid inside a minute, and the bitterness cannot be picked back out of a ground mixture.
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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