Olla de carne

As tradition built it

Olla de carne

Serves 8. About 4 hours.

Ingredients

The method as the tradition gives it, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them, lead dishes first.

• 1kg shank plus 2kg bone-in short ribs beef, bone-in, short ribs or shank
• 750g yuca
• 2, peeled and cubed malanga
• 1kg potato
• 3 carrot
• 500g sweet potato
• 2 chayote
• 1 ripe and 1 green plantain
• 4 cobs corn on the cob
• 1 small bunch culantro
• 6 cloves garlic
• 2 onion
• bay leaf

Method

1. Simmer the beef first with the aromatics, culantro, garlic, onion and bay leaf, until very tender.
2. Add the root vegetables, yuca, malanga and potato, and the other vegetables, carrot, sweet potato, chayote, plantain and corn on the cob, progressively, timed so they soften without disintegrating and clouding the broth.
3. Serve traditionally on a Sunday, suited to a long day at home.
4. Where practised as "los tres vuelcos", serve in three separate components: a plate of vegetables, a separate plate of meat, and a cup of broth, rather than one mixed bowl.

Notes

Historically, the range and quantity of vegetables in the pot marked household wealth, richer families' ollas carrying more variety.

In some families' own practice, though not a codified regional rule, olla de carne is served as los tres vuelcos rather than one mixed bowl.

What a modern chef changes

Separate cooks, a clarified broth

Rung 05

Method

1. Hold the beef sous vide, separately from the vegetables, at a temperature that renders it properly tender without the boiled, greying result a shared pot risks.
2. Reduce the reserved bones and trim into the actual broth base.
3. Clarify that broth through a chinois into something closer to a genuine consommé, closer in spirit to the olla podrida this dish is traced back to than a cloudy family stockpot.
4. Blend a portion of the squash or malanga back into the clarified broth with a high-power blender for real body, rather than relying on starch runoff alone to thicken it.
5. Serve deliberately as tres vuelcos, three plates rather than one bowl, presenting a genuine household custom as a considered service style rather than smoothing it into a single dish.