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Spanish Ropa Vieja - Old Clothes''
11/2 POUNDS FLANK STEAK, BOILED, COOLED AND FLAKED 2 TABLESPOONS LARD OR OLIVE OIL 2 GARLIC CLOVES I CHOPPED ONION 3 GREEN PEPPERS, CHOPPED 3 LARGE TOMATOES, CHOPPED PEPPER CANNED PIMIENTOS There will be about 3 cups of flaked meat. Heat fat in small deep frying pan. Brown garlic cloves in it and remove them. Add onion and peppers to the garlic-flavored fat and cook gently until soft. Then add chopped tomatoes, stir and simmer, and when sauce is smooth and bubbling add flaked meat, a dash of pepper and salt to taste. Let meat simmer in sauce 10 minutes. A little water may be added, if needed. Serve garnished with slices of canned pimientos.
A frugal one-pan dish built on already-cooked beef, so the real work happens before the recipe starts. The whole thing depends on how the flank is boiled and shredded.
- The meat comes firstFlank steak needs a long, gentle simmer in salted water with an onion and a bay leaf if you have one, roughly 2 to 2 1/2 hours, until it pulls apart along the grain. Rushing it at a hard boil gives you tough strings rather than soft flakes. Cooling the meat in its liquid keeps it moist and makes flaking easier.
- Quantity of beefThe weight is given as one and a half pounds, which yields about 3 cups of shredded meat as the text says. Modern flank is often sold in larger pieces; skirt or brisket shreds just as well.
- FatLard gives the closest flavour to the original. Olive oil is the stated alternative and works, though a mild oil is better than a peppery extra virgin here since the fat is only a carrier for the garlic.
- Browning the garlicWhole cloves are browned and lifted out to perfume the fat. Take them out while they are golden, not dark, and keep the heat moderate; scorched garlic will flavour the entire pan bitterly.
- Green peppersThree peppers to three tomatoes is a lot of pepper by modern taste. These would have been ordinary green bells; cook them slowly until genuinely soft and sweet, 10 to 15 minutes, rather than just wilted.
- TomatoesThree large fresh tomatoes, chopped with their juice, reduce to the "smooth and bubbling" sauce described. Out of season, canned chopped tomatoes drained of some liquid are closer to what the recipe expects than pale winter fruit; three large tomatoes come to about a pound and a half, so use a large can rather than a small one.
- SaltSalt is not in the ingredient list but is called for in the method. Season at the end, since boiled beef often carries salt from its cooking water.
- PimientosCanned pimientos are sweet red peppers, peeled and packed in brine, still sold in jars. Roasted red peppers from a jar are an acceptable stand-in.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; about 3 cups of meat in sauce will serve four with rice. Reheats well the next day.
Ropa vieja means "old clothes," a name generally explained by the look of the shredded meat, which resembles a heap of rags in red sauce. The dish belongs to a wide family of Spanish and Caribbean preparations that turn yesterday's boiled beef, the meat left over from making broth or cocido, into a second meal with sofrito and tomato; Cuba claims the best-known version, and Spanish versions are older. The beef can be boiled and flaked the day before, and the finishing takes one pan and ten minutes. The garnish of canned pimientos, and the assumption that a cook keeps a tin of them on hand, points to a twentieth-century American kitchen.