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Argentine Roast Beef Ribs
(Asado a la Parrilla) This is one of the grand but homely dishes of the Argentine where even the ribs of beef are especially well furnished with meat, tender and sweet. Have about 5-6 pounds of beef ribs cut so there are 3 ribs to each piece. Season well with salt and pepper and grill over live coals, turning until outside is crisp and brown. Eat with a sauce made by frying onion, garlic, chili pepper and tomato in lard. And serve with a green salad or fresh watercress, dripping from the brook.
A short entry that assumes a wood fire and a cook who knows it. The technique matters more than the measurements: this is slow grilling over spent coals, not searing over flame.
- "Live coals" means embers, not flameBurn the wood or charcoal down until it is grey-ashed and glowing, then spread it thin. Aim for a moderate heat, with the meat set well above the coals rather than close over them. Fat rendering onto open flame is what turns asado bitter and black.
- The cut to ask forRibs "cut so there are 3 ribs to each piece" means the ribs left in slabs, bone in, English cut; the recipe does not specify which part of the rib section. In Argentina ribs are more often cut across the bones into strips (tira de asado); a butcher will call that flanken-style, and it cooks much faster than the slabs described here.
- TimingSlabs of this thickness want the better part of an hour, and the recipe calls for turning them until the outside is crisp and brown. Cut across the bone into strips, the same meat cooks in minutes a side.
- DonenessArgentine grilling generally takes rib meat well past rare; the connective tissue in the plate needs time to soften. Look for meat that has pulled back from the bone and gives easily.
- SaltCoarse salt applied generously just before the meat goes on, or during cooking, is the traditional handling. Fine table salt in the same volume will make the meat unpleasantly salty.
- The sauceOnion, garlic, chili and tomato fried in fat is a cooked criollo-style sauce; salsa criolla as usually understood in Argentina is uncooked. Lard is still the right choice for flavour, but any neutral oil works; roughly one large onion, two cloves garlic, one fresh chili and two tomatoes, cooked down and seasoned with salt and a splash of vinegar.
- Watercress from the brookWild watercress gathered from open water is not eaten raw today, because streams grazed by livestock can carry liver fluke and other contamination. Use cultivated watercress.
- YieldFive to six pounds of bone-in ribs feeds four to six people generously, less if the ribs are fatty and you trim hard.