Argentina Steak: Grilling Points

When it comes to wine, the consensus is that you should drink the wines that make you happy. At the end of the day, quality, style, price and recommendations from the finest of sommeliers mean very little if that wine just doesn’t work for you. To each his own. In terms of steaks, this logic applies as well, not that it has prevented the debate over to which point a steak must be grilled to rage on endlessly. I’m not here to solve that debate – but perhaps to give my take on it.

One of the fun but essentially non-transferable skills that you pick up from working in a steakhouse is being able to 1) guess pretty accurately how people like their beef cooked and 2) and to which point a steak has been cooked by glancing at it. But first let’s review the various grilling points that any steakhouse should be able to hit. The scale, running from faintly mooing to burnt to a crisp, goes likes this:

Blue – Rare – Medium Rare – Medium – Medium Well – Well Done. Below is an illustrative chart explaining their differences. A key point to remember that beef cooked Blue and Rare is never served cold – it has to be hot but the meat can’t have been cooked through.

Now, at least in London, 60% of clients ordered Medium Rare, another 30% were split evenly between Rare and Medium Well and the remaining 10% spread randomly around Blue, Well Done and Very Well Done. In Argentina, the numbers are closer to 70% Medium another 20% ask for Well Done and only the odd lunatic goes for Medium Rare or less. More on this later.

Anyways, given the rates that we were seeing in London, we would take notice when someone asked for a Rare steak. Some announced their choice bravely and loudly, as if they deserved a gold star having the courage to order a steak Rare. Almost everybody asking for Well Done or Very Well Done apologised for their preference, much like when non-smokers apologise for not having a lighter on them when asked. French tourists made up the 70% of steaks ordered Blue and most people ordering the smallest steaks also ordered them more cooked. And believe it or not, peer pressure exists when it comes to grilling points. I can’t understand why, but in many groups of friends there’s always one self-appointed grilling point supervisor who will cluck disapprovingly if anybody orders a steak beyond an arbitrarily determined point. The most interesting part though was when I was asked what I recommended as grilling points. The story of to each his own also applies here but it’s true that nature of the cuts matters when choosing grilling points. For the larger Bife de Chorizo I didn’t recommend anybody doubting of their choice that they go with Rare just because it is so large and that is a large amount of relatively uncooked beef to get through. I also think Medium Rare works a bit better on cuts that are fattier because the extended heat helps to breakdown the marbling better. So, Bife de Lomo Rare or Blue? Right on, but not the Ojo de Bife if you aren’t already sure you like it that way.

The debate about grilling points really verges on the fact that those who prefer it less cooked insist that by extending the cooking the meat loses its juices and tenderness and becomes irremediably inedible. The opposing camp usually can’t bear the thought of blood and juices pooling in their plate. Each has a point. In Argentina the standard is not only to grill the meat to at least Medium, but that at asados you don’t get to pick the grilling point. As the pieces are grilled whole and it is up to the asador when the cut is ready, you best like whatever is served to you. It isn’t entirely clear to me why in Argentina everybody also prefers their beef grilled longer. My working theory is that the quality of the beef is such that even if you get it Well Done it is still tender and tasty. But there’s basically no science or method behind that statement so take it a considerable amount of sal parrillera.

I personally go for a Medium Rare and on occasion will ask for a Rare. Amongst friends I won’t blink if the beef is Medium. When the wine is good and the company better, I’m not sure that it matters all that much to me as long as it’s been done Argentine-style over a parrilla!

 

Argentina Steak: Tapa de Cuadril

So I went to an asado last weekend. An asado prepared by a Austrian friend for an eclectic mix of foreigners and Argentines. The weather started nicely but it was soon grey and rainy and cold and although the Brits were pleased, everyone else did their best to hide their sense of impending doom. The omens were just not there to anticipate a great asado.

Gleefully, I was wrong. The chorizos were great (you can get chorizos anywhere but you have to know where the good ones are) and the starter of matambre de cerdo was so good that it made all the rain and cold go away. It was just how I like it, with enough salt and lemon juice to complement the nice flavours. We had started well and the tapa de asado was great as well as it was tender just the right shade of pink. As I’ve noted elsewhere, tapa de asado is a difficult cut to get right and so my esteem for our Austrian host was already assured. The vacío also hit the spot and so I was happy.

Hence my surprise when the picanha was offered. I’d never had this cut before although you often see it advertised in restaurants aimed at Brazilian tourists. Picanha is the go-to cut in Brazil and is rarely put on the grill in Argentina. Here it is known as tapa de cuadril and as rump cap in English-speaking markets. The tapa de cuadril nomenclature gives you an idea of where the cut is from. If the colita de cuadril is tri-trip and cuadril is rump, the tapa indicates that the cut is drawn from above the cuadril. It is a muscle that caps that the sirloin/rump area and has a significant layer of fat on the topside that can be trimmed before or after grilling. When left whole and not cut into steaks, the tapa de cuadril is an imperfectly rectangular block about 15cm y 10cm and 8cm thick. The parrillero trimmed the outer fat and grilled it whole over a medium low heat for about 25 minutes on each side and served it quite pink through the middle. It was juicy and tender and had a full flavour, reminiscent of the colita de cuadril but not as delicate. Grilling the entire cut whole left it very tender as well, and perfect for cutting into thin slices for all of us to tuck into.

Tapa de Cuadril

The image of the Austrian grilling a Brazilian cut on an Argentine terrace on an English day is a good reflection of how each asado is unique and an exercise in judgment by the parrillero. Pacing the meat, selecting which cuts are to be grilled while also hosting a bunch of hungry and demanding friends is a bit of an art. It takes experience and cancha (literally “soccer field”, slang in Argentina for having developed skills and guile at an activity), and my Austrian friend has it in spades. I just might incorporate tapa de cuadril into the portfolio of cuts for my next asado. And isn’t imitation the sincerest form of flattery?

 

Argentine Beef Industry: Beef Production and Exports

The natural progression from discussing Argentina’s declining beef consumption is to look at the flipside, beef production. Consumption and production are of course linked, in ways that are more complicated than can be in a simple blog, but the fact is that Argentine beef production has fallen just as consumption has fallen.

Again, much like the fables about beef for breakfast, lunch and dinner that are heard about Argentina’s beef consumption history, it is common to hear peculiar anecdotes about Argentine beef production and exports from the glory days. Beef and grains were the figurative cash cows of an Argentine economy based around exports to Europe. Argentines fortunate enough to control the business were able to take their own cows to Europe on the trans-Atlantic ships when they went on business trips. They could afford the unnecessary cost of taking their own cows because they also wanted to guarantee that they got Argentine beef while in Europe. Life was good, evidently.

The modern picture is different. While exporting beef remains profitable, Argentine beef production and exports have fallen from a recent high in 2005 of 771,000 tons of beef, placing it as the 3^rd largest exporter of beef. In 2012 that number had dropped to 183,000 tons of beef and Argentina is now ranked 11^th globally and exports less beef than all of the other Mercosur countries. This includes Paraguay and Uruguay, countries with far less area for cattle production. The extremely lucrative Hilton Quota has also not been filled in the last few years. This drop in export is naturally linked to a drop in production because of droughts, export taxes and administrative requirements, difficulties in reaching export markets because of an uncompetitive Argentine peso and stringent requirements to become part of some of the European Union’s beef import quotas. Argentina’s immediate competitors in the Mercosur do not have export taxes and have been able to open up new markets, especially in Asia. The current government has also sought to keep domestic beef prices low by obliging exporters to also sell locally at a reduced price. The jury is still out on whether this has been successful, but Argentina consumption now absorbed about 94% of the production. Considering that consumption is down in absolute terms, it’s clear that the industry is not at it’s healthiest. Indeed, 15,000 jobs have been lost as slaughterhouses have closed.

However, there are signs of a potential improvement as export taxes have been dropped and production and exports are expected to increase in consequence. This means more Argentine beef in the main export markets. These are the European Union, which receives about 30% of total exports at an average price of 13,000 USD per ton. Once those tons are segmented into the choice cuts such as bife de lomo, they can cost more by the kilo than a BMW! Nobody consumes BMWs by the kilo, but you get the point. Russia, Israel, Venezuela and Chile make up the majority of the remaining export, but at a much lower profitability margin.

Instead of the overflowing abundance of beef in the past, Argentina’s beef is harder to find than before in the export markets. But the upside is that great beef is still part of daily life in Argentina. And where there’s great beef there is also great asados. And that’s not a bad thing in the least.

– Thanks to Max Raatjes for research support.

 

Argentine Beef Industry: Beef Consumption in Argentina

As fun as it is to discuss the minute details of grilling great beef, it’s important to keep in mind that there’s an entire industry behind the Argentine asado. This will be first of a series of posts specifically addressing the beef industry from both an Argentine and global perspective. While this blog will hardly be the definitive resource on the industry, the expectation is that it provide some interesting information that will help to better understand why Argentine beef and it’s grilling traditions are so special.

A good place to start is to look at the demand for beef in Argentina, measured by consumption. While I don’t have the exact figures or total confidence that this is a true story, I’ve heard it multiple times that in the 19^th Century, beef was cheaper than wheat in Argentina. At the time it was also common for the large estancias to provide full room and board for its farmworkers. As a consequence, beef was served three times a day. This was the zenith of Argentine beef consumption, and thankfully for everyone’s cholesterol levels this level of consumption is now totally unheard of.

The overall trend has been for decreasing beef consumption throughout the last 100 years or so, but the levels still remain very high on a global scale. More precisely, in 1959 the average annual consumption in beef in Argentina was 222 pounds (100kg) per capita, a number which decreased to 129 (58.5)pounds in 2012. That’s a drop from a rather shocking 0.6 pounds  (270 grams) a day to a mere  0.35 pounds (160 grams) a day. As a reference, the average in the United States was 57.5 pounds in 2012, but Argentina is no longer first in global beef consumption, a title now awarded to Uruguay.

There are two main reasons for this change have been an increasing in beef prices (to be discussed in another post) along with a shift of dietary preferences. Simply put, beef consumption has become more reasonable without actually dropping enough for Argentina to lose it’s place amongst the biggest consumers of beef in the world. This trend is unlikely to change drastically – I would argue that there’s a floor for beef consumption here because it so important culturally. If prices continue to go up perhaps  there will be a drop in beef cooked at home during the week, but the asado will put up some resistance. And we can glad for that. Three square meals of beef a day isn’t what anyone needs, but it’s hard to say no to the weekly asado. That’s a dietary preference that isn’t ever going to go away, and we can all be glad for it.

– Thanks to Jennifer Grünwald for her research assistance

 

Argentina Steak: Tapa de Asado

After a few posts not about beef, I thought it was important to get back to the roots. This post will feature not only a return to red-blooded beef but also to a cut that is quite specific to Argentina, the tapa de asado. Literally translated as the “cover of asado”, I’ve yet to find it’s equivalent in English. Asado, as the readers of this blog will be well aware, refers to the Argentine-style barbecue. But asado is also used as shorthand for tira de asado. This provides the first clue to where the tapa de asado is from.

As tira de asado is in fact short-ribs, the tapa is in fact the meat that covers the top and front of the ribs. In some cases, it can bought attached to the tira de asado, but is most common bought independently. It is boneless and rectangular in shape, at least 5cm thick with sides of about 20cm by 15cm and has a layer of fat on one side that while not thick, is also not negligible. Otherwise the tapa is quite lean except for a single strand of marbling that runs through the center and it usually comes in a whole piece of about 1 kilogram and tends to be one of the cheaper cuts that are also worth grilling. I have seen it translated as rib cap, which sounds right in an anatomical sense, but it appears that rib cap is a actually a reference to Rib-eye cap, which is a totally different cut related to the Rib-eye (Ojo de bife).

Tapa de Asado

 

The catch with tapa de asado is that it is best when at medium–rare and has a tendency to be tough when cooked past that point. Even in Argentina, known for its tough gauchos capable of braving the Pampas but also terrified of any pink in their steaks, the consensus is that tapa de asado is at its best when left on the grill for less time than the other cuts. Even when medium-rare it will not be as tender as bife de lomo or ojo de bife, but it is certainly very flavourful, hitting a flavor profile between the bife de chorizo and the ojo de bife, not so meaty and beef-y but also not so buttery.

On the grill, the tapa takes a long time because it cannot be rushed and it is also usually a large piece. Medium-low heat for about half an hour on each side usually does the trick, but with this cut err on the side of taking it off too soon.

Cut into individual steaks the tapa is great, and makes a perfect foil for the flashier cuts that grab the headlines. I will confess that although I am quite fond of tapa de asado, it’s not everyone’s first choice. It certainly doesn’t excite people like the fancy cuts, but if done right it will certainly surprise them. This is a cut that is rarely if ever offered at a parrilla and so it’s part of the homemade repertoire and any self-respecting gaucho or parrillero has to know how to do one. And it’s ok if it doesn’t ever makes it to the podium of most sought-after cuts – that means there’s more for the rest of us.

 

Argentina Steak: Chicken on the Grill

When planning my asados I occasionally have to plan around the fact that even in Argentina, there are some people who don’t fall over themselves for an opportunity to have some beef off the grill. They aren’t vegetarian, they do like the rituals and ceremony behind the asado, but they might make a face when you ask them if they prefer tira de asado or vacio or colita de cuadril. That face suggests that they want something else. These are the people that when offered coffee ask if you have tea instead. So what to do with these people? In this situation, the best option is to grill up a whole chicken. Chicken on the grill, when done right, is amazing and will please not only the finicky eaters but everyone else at the table.

Naturally, the first step is to find a whole chicken at your kindly local butcher. Once you clarify that you want your chicken for grilling and all the gizzards have been removed, you will be offered to have it cut in one of two ways.  The first option is to cut it lengthwise along the sternum so that the chicken is opened up ventrally, and the second approach is to cut it a la rana (as a frog), where the breast is left intact and instead the chicken is cut along the cavity, so that the breast can be lifted upwards, much like a jaw opening and closing. See the first minute or so of the video below for a demonstration. This step can also be done at home if you are comfortable chopping up chickens and you have a good sharp knife.

Chicken cut ventrally

The first approach is the more traditional and is tried and tested. Cutting it rana­-style is beneficial because not only is the breast intact but the chicken lies a bit flatter against the grill. Either method is fine, really. My butcher will often make some notches in the bone in the drumsticks. No idea what that is about, but it certainly doesn’t make the chicken worse. Depending on where you get your chickens from, there might be tiny feathers still stuck in the skin. Take those out.

Much like everything else on the Argentine grill, the only real preparation is the addition of the sal entrefina. Adding herbs like rosemary in the cavity works well, so feel free to add any herbs that you like. But the idea is that the chicken taste mostly like chicken, along with the smoke of the embers.

Just as with the beef cuts that are bone-in, the chicken goes bone down first over the grill. Chicken, when compared to beef, is quite a bit more complicated. Not only must it be served cooked all the way through, it’s no fun if the meat is dry. Furthermore, for reasons unknown, chicken meat also cooks more slowly than beef, and doesn’t respond well at all to being rushed. Hence the complications. When I do chicken on the grill, I put it on soon after the chorizos and morcilla, and give it medium-low heat endlessly until the skin is a very golden brown, which is at least 30 minutes typically and then flip it and continue with the same level of heat. When in doubt with chicken, give it a bit more time at medium heat. The key is getting the bones hot and cooking the meat but without burning the skin and drying the meat out. It’s tricky. I remember one time I managed to get the juices in the drumstick to simmer visibly underneath the skin. That’s the kind of heat that you want.

Often the chicken will begin to disintegrate at the joints before being served. That’s a good sign, but not a guarantee that everything has been cooked all the way through. Experience and judgment will tell you when the chicken is ready. Naturally, the most difficult part is to get the chicken ready at the same time as the all the other mains that are being served that night. Because otherwise you can expect glares from the finicky eaters wondering where their special meal is.

The best part about chicken on the grill is that the day after the meat tastes even better and it makes for awesome sandwich filling. In the end, it isn’t so bad to have difficult guests because chicken on the grill is actually pretty special. Just make sure the finicky eaters leave you some!

 

Argentina Steak: Mollejas

In a way, the entire asado concept is an exercise in guilty pleasures. The repeatedly excessive amounts of meat, wine and good times shared with friends and family can only be described as an indulgence. Asados are not particularly friendly to waistlines and so are usually accompanied with some self-recriminations to do some exercise. Mañana, of course.

Now, in terms of guilty pleasures, you can’t get more shamefully guilty than tucking into some perfectly cooked molleja (sweetbreads in North America and the UK or ris de veau in France). While perhaps not for the slightly squeamish, mollejas have a unique taste that is down to the fact that it is in fact a gland and not muscle tissue like the other cuts that go on the parrilla. Of course, because this is Argentina, there are two different kinds of molleja, and there is contradictions within the folk wisdom about their anatomical differences. Both appear to be cut from different parts of the thymus gland, which is part of the immune system. Molleja de corazon (surrounding the heart), is perceived to be better for the grill as it is fattier and usually thicker so they stand up to the heat better. The molleja de garganta (from the throat) is thinner and naturally less fatty, and so is best for pan-frying with spring onions. Because our priorities run towards anything on the parrilla, the focus will be on the mollejas de corazon.

Just like with almost any other element of an Argentine asado, there are as many recipes for mollejas as there are parrilleros. However, with more than any other piece of meat that goes onto the grill, the recipes for molleja really do have a dramatic impact on the final product. The controversies about salting for example, rarely result in a bad steak. But because mollejas are naturally very strong tasting and fatty, need to be grilled basically well done and can take a long time to cook, the differing approaches will be apparent in the result.

Mollejas are served as starters and so their preparation is one of the first things that a parrillero will take care of. Some parrileros will salt and then throw them onto the grill as is, eventually butterflying them after browning them for some 30 minutes over some medium heat on each side. This will result in the most intensely flavoured molleja. Other approaches include boiling the mollejas in either water or milk along with lemon juice and salt from anywhere from 10 minutes to a few hours, and either letting the mollejas cool before putting them onto the grill or alternatively pressing them and storing them in the fridge overnight. The thinking is that boiling the mollejas strips them both of their fattiness and their more potent flavours as well as pre-cooking them to an extent, making life easier for those running the grill. Again, the idea is to grill the mollejas over persistent medium heat and butterflying when golden on each side and adding more lemon juice as the molleja cooks.  The lemon juice makes an appearance because it naturally fits the flavor of the molleja. The variety of recipes reflects the fact that mollejas are difficult, that they are fickle and can let a parrillero down. I choose to boil them for 10 minutes before grilling, but I’ve had great mollejas done a variety of ways. They do need to be absolutely fresh as well, and preferably from a reliable butcher and the less fatty the better. Smart portenos will also be able to recommend which parrillas have great mollejas and where you should avoid them.

I have avoided defining the flavor of molleja because I find that they are unique and more or less incomparable. They are undoubtedly gamey, but not in the same way that duck or wild boar is. They absorb lemon juice and the smoke off the grill very well but also retain their specific flavor, which is like a savoury butter, kind of. It is certainly a delicacy, as it is pricey and hard to get right. It is also very filling. I remember that at one my asados I picked up 500 grams for a group of about six of us. That is plenty, especially because we also had some provoleta and chorizos as starters. Half of some pretty amazing molleja was left and a friend of mine refused to accept that it wasn’t going to be eaten so he polished it off. He was so full afterwards that he didn’t make it to the main steak portion and went to sleep at 9pm.

If you have a chance, try some mollejas. Be prepared to not like them, but there really isn’t anything else like it. And if you like them, you’ll join a very large group of those who sheepishly enjoying mollejas whilst scrambling to justify such a guilty pleasure. Try it. Join us.

 

Argentina Steak: Quebracho

I am not a botanist. Nor do I have a particular understanding of nature. I know that trees grow and that occasionally they get chopped down and used as firewood to cook some meat and heat houses. There’s not a lot more to it than that, as far as I am concerned. But this entry is about Quebracho, a generic name given to a few tree species native to Argentina that are used by the most exacting of parrilleros. 

The term Quebracho is a corruption of quebrar (to  break) and hacha (axe), and refers to a collection of very hard woods that may or may not be genetically related. The term “ironwood” is used in English in a similar way in fact. The images of cracking axes and trees made of iron should provide a clue to the how these woods burn when used in an asado. If newspaper is a 0 in a scale of 0 to 10 in terms of hardness, quebracho is most definitely an 11.

It is important to note that of the entire Quebracho class, it is Quebracho blanco (Aspidosperma quebracho-blanco) and Quebracho colorado (Schinopsis lorentzii and Schinopsis balansae variants) that are most commonly used for parrillas. Predictably and to add to the confusion, these two are of different species and not related at all. Each are extremely dense and hard.

Credit – Wikipedia

I’ve used Quebracho colorado a few times, and each time I’ve been amazed by how dense it is. When cut into pieces of about 20cm by 20cm (good luck chopping them yourself without breaking your axe) that are manageable for the parrilla they are still very heavy, easily passing a kilogram each. They take hours to break down into coals, but do so reliably, with a lot of heat and very little ash. This is important particularly for parrillas not only using wood, but also serving a large number of guests. If they were to use lighter firewood they would need enormous quantities and would spend a great deal of time restocking their fire rather than managing the meat on the grill. The flipside is of course that lighting a fire with Quebracho is difficult and generating coals requires some time and expertise. Readers familiar with the firewood versus coals debate will recall that anybody using firewood is probably a bit of a asado nerd; using Quebracho makes you an asado ultranerd.

But the fact that the ultranerds use it doesn’t take away from the fact that Quebracho is part of the intricate details of an asado. Much like the different cuts of meat have their own flavours, identities and secrets, using different kind of wood will drastically change the way that the fire burns. The fire itself is fundamental to the asado, and adapting to how every specific fire burns is part of any parrilero’s job. Doing an asado is an exercise in judgment, as the parrillero measures fire, coals and meat as well as his or her own alcohol intake along with keeping hungry and rowdy guests at bay. Using Quebracho is perhaps a guilty pleasure, as it isn’t cheap, but if you can appreciate the satisfaction of building a fire to cook your dinner, you can certainly appreciate the novelty of using some something capable of breaking axes to grill that delicate bife de lomo just right.

 

Argentina Steak: Dry-aging, Wet-aging, No-Aging

Not so long ago I spent a few months in New York City. It was a great few months, but I was also on a budget so I spent a lot of time adapting my Argentine tastes to my New York reality by looking at, rather than buying, wine and beef. My budget made me a discerning buyer but I also spent a lot of time being confused about why kinda gross-looking dry – aged hunks of beef were being advertised as liquid gold. To me, dry-aging seemed like a waste of good beef.

I distinctly recall wandering around one of those giant supermarkets with aisles full of organic, fair-trade or locally-sourced, carbon-neutral, trendy and overpriced products and stumbling upon the butcher’s section. Everything looked great but behind the butchers, cased in what I could only interpret as a shrine, sat an enormous and uncut piece of beef. I can’t remember the cut, but it was probably a sirloin of some kind. It had been dry-aged so it was gray instead of red, the marbled fat was more yellow than white, the exterior was covered in a kind of moss or mould and it was priced ridiculously more than all the other fresh cuts. The appearance alone made it easy for me to move on and save my money but I was intrigued. What could possibly be so great about this odd looking piece of beef? Fancy steakhouses that I looked at but never entered also talked up their dry-aged beef. What gives?

Dry-aging is a process by which large and quality cuts of beef are stored at near freezing temperatures for 15 to 28 days, during which moisture evaporates from the meat and natural enzymes act upon the meat. These two processes result in a greater concentration of flavor and greater tenderness respectively. Because it is costly, it is reserved for the best cuts such as sirloin and rib-eye.  To be fair, I’ve never tasted a dry-aged piece of steak so I can’t vouch for the process. Clearly, the fact that a market exists for dry-aged beef means that at least for a minority it’s worth their money. In Argentina dry-aging is essentially unheard of, and I’m willing to wager that it’s because the grass-fed beef has a greater natural tenderness and flavor. Furthermore, in Argentina the tendency is to seek out the freshest meat as the flavor is more vibrant. As such, the tendency is towards no-aging in Argentina. What you do find for premium quality beef is vacuum-packaging, which helps the beef to retain it’s freshness for longer, a process quite similar to wet-aging. See a write-up  from an actual butcher explaining the differences.

Whenever I go to my butcher here, who doesn’t dry-age his beef at all, I always pick out the brightest red cuts, with very white fat and with barely any odor. Precisely because that’s the best way to taste the beef and not any other effects of aging. This is what my experience has taught me, based on the kind of beef available in Argentina, which I consistently rate as the best. I will confess though that while in New York more than once I couldn’t resist the urge for red meat and I bought some (quite appropriately) New York Strip Steaks from Peter’s Meat Market in the Arthur Avenue Market in the Bronx. Highly recommended. And guess what? Not dry-aged.

 

Argentina Steak: Matambre de Cerdo

You may be forgiven for thinking that the only item allowed on an Argentine grill is beef, usually in a combination of lomo, bife de chorizo, tira de asado and perhaps some pork and beef sausages. While it’s certainly true that these cuts feature prominently in any asado, there certainly is room for choice pork cuts, especially the crowd-pleasing kind such as matambre de cerdo.

The term matambre literally refers to “hunger-killing”, the “de cerdo” is added to clarify that this cut is not the same as the straightforward beef matambre, which is in fact a variant of a flank steak, cut from the area between the ribs and the skin. Beef matambre is common in Argentine cuisine but rarely makes it to the grill as it can be quite tough and benefits from oven braising. In contrast, matambre de cerdo, translated as pork flank steak, does brilliantly on the grill as it is a thin roughly rectangular cut, no more than 5 centimetres thick that can extend to 20 com long and has a shape resembling a sheet. Think of it as an even more literal version of pigs in a blanket. The matambre de cerdo has a very (un)healthy layer of fat spread on both sides which can be removed with a sharp knife and some patience, but purists will insist that it be kept as is. It is a boneless cut and easy to manipulate, so some recipes call for the matambre de cerdo to be rolled up and stuffed with all sorts of ingredients, including vegetables and cheeses. This is up to each parrillero of course.

Raw Matambre de Cerdo

The preparation for this cut is a little different as Argentine customary law permits fussing over pork in ways that are forbidden for beef cuts. The typical approach is to flood the matambre de cerdo with sal entrefina, lemon juice and a good amount of black pepper before grilling. The thinness of the cut allows for the flavor to really seep through in ways that beef doesn’t allow.

Also in contrast to most beef cuts, the best approach to grilling matambre de cerdo is to blast it with high heat for a short period. This approach removes the outer fat and also cooks the meat quickly, guaranteeing that it doesn’t dry out. As this is a pork dish, it is almost universally served well done, though the idea is that it still be juicy. The high heat means that each side requires less than 10 minutes and more lemon juice is added throughout the grilling, with care required to not leave any bitter lemon seeds on the meat.

Matambre de Cerdo ready for serving

Once the matambre de cerdo has been flipped and cooked through, it is removed and served either as a main dish, as an accompanying part of the mains in an asado or as a starter. I personally prefer it is a starter cut into small pieces and enjoyed by the grill along with some provoleta and mollejas. Certainly not a light cut by any means, but very tasty and the perfect way to start a long night of eating and drinking. I must confess that I tend to avoid pork but I will never say no to a well-prepared matambre de cerdo. If you see it on a menu, try it, it will hardly disappoint and you can still have your bife de chorizo and flan for dessert.