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Brazilian Beef in Backwoods Style
(Churrasco) Even when done in a city oven the flavor of Brazilian beef cooked in backwoods style is swell, although the meat is a bit tough because only half-wild zebus are raised in Brazil-our long-horns can't survive the climate and ticks. The cut used for churrasco is a big hunk of breast and ribs together, say 6 pounds, and in the country the hide usually is left on, which is also the custom among Argentine cowboys who have the finest cattle in the world and look down upon zebus. (They also skin the hind legs of cattle in one piece, cure 'em and wear 'em skinside out as a naturally tailored pair of pants.) Salt the beef well with coarse salt, then rub thoroughly with plenty of crushed garlic. (You can get rid of garlic smell on fingers by holding them under a jet of cold water, not hot.) Have a deep bed of coals so there will be enough heat to cook the outside welldone quickly, and leave the inside of the thick part of the roast red, so blood will follow the knife when it's carved. Churrasco should be roasted on a steel spit and turned religiously until brown and toothsomely crisp.
A whole-muscle spit roast with two seasonings and one variable that decides everything: fire depth. The instruction to build a deep bed of coals is the recipe, and the rest is patience.
- The cut"Breast and ribs together" is the plate and brisket end of the forequarter, sold today as a bone-in short plate, whole beef ribs, or a brisket-and-rib slab from a butcher who will cut to order. Six pounds bone-in will feed roughly six to eight as a main course.
- Hide onSkip it. Hide-on roasting depends on a freshly killed animal and gives you an insulating layer that is discarded; hide-on beef is not something a retail butcher is likely to sell you, and retail meat regulations in most places assume the hide is removed at slaughter.
- ZebuThe Brazilian cattle described are Bos indicus humped breeds, leaner and firmer than the European-cross beef sold in North America. Modern beef of the same cut is fattier and will be more forgiving over a hard fire than the author expects.
- Salt and garlic timingCoarse salt rubbed on an hour or more ahead penetrates and helps the crust dry. Crushed garlic, by contrast, scorches over a deep coal bed; rub it on and expect the surface layer to blacken, or reserve part of the garlic to mash with a little oil and brush on after carving.
- Fire depthFor a six-pound roast you want three to four inches of coals burned down to grey ash, spread wider than the meat, and the spit set eight to ten inches above. A shallow fire dies partway through and leaves you with a grey, dry exterior and a cold centre.
- Doneness"Blood will follow the knife" means rare: 125-130F at the thickest point. The author gives no timing. Use an instant-read thermometer rather than the visual cue, since a bone-in slab reads very differently at the rib and at the plate.
- Oven versionThe author allows a city oven but gives no temperature. A hot oven, around 450F, on a rack over a pan, turning the piece two or three times and pulling it at the same internal temperature, will do it. You lose smoke and gain even browning.
- Resting and carvingRest fifteen to twenty minutes before carving or the juices run out onto the board. Cut across the grain in thick slices.
Churrasco is the cooking of the Rio Grande do Sul cattle country and the neighbouring pampas of Uruguay and Argentina, where beef spitted on iron and set beside a fire of coals is the ordinary way of feeding a working camp. The word is generally traced to an Iberian root also behind Spanish churrascar, to scorch, and it means the fire method rather than any one cut. The author's tangent about zebus and Argentine hide trousers reflects a genuine regional rivalry of the period: Brazil's herds were built on Indian humped cattle able to withstand heat and tick fever, while the temperate pampas raised British breeds and the ranchers there were not shy about the comparison. Books of outdoor cookery in the mid-twentieth century leaned heavily on this kind of borrowed camp technique, presenting the spit and the coal bed as the authentic alternative to the domestic oven; what carries the dish is not a recipe so much as salt, garlic, and a fire deep enough to finish the job.