The Caribbean · Volume 12, The Sofrito, the Libreta and the Ninety Miles to Miami
Ropa vieja
Cuba
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- Hands on 2 hours · Waiting 8 hours
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
As tradition built it
Ropa vieja
About two hours simmered, plus a fifteen-minute sauce; traditionally left to improve overnight.
Ingredients
An outline, not yet a recipe: the tradition's method with its ingredients named but not weighed. Quantities are being added from sources inside the tradition, lead dishes first.
- 1 lb beef flank (falda), for shredding
- 1 large onion onion
- 1 red pepper
- 2 to 3 cloves garlic
- peeled tomatoes
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp oregano
- 1 tsp, or to taste paprika
- 2 bay leaf
- olives
- a little vinegar
- for garnish cilantro, to finish
Comparison proportions, Maricel Presilla, serves six
- 2½ to 3 lb beef brisket
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 8 oz tomato sauce
- 1½ cups reserved beef broth
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
Method
- Simmer the flank steak in salted water until tender, roughly two hours.
- Separately saute the peppers, onion and garlic, then add the peeled tomatoes, white wine, cumin, oregano, paprika, bay leaf and olives and simmer for fifteen minutes.
- Combine with the shredded meat, finished with cilantro and a little vinegar.
Notes
The dish traditionally improves overnight, its flavour deepening as it rests.
What a modern chef changes
Sous vide flank, clarified sauce, smoked char
Method
- Sous vide the flank steak long and low, well below a simmering pot's temperature, for shreds that pull apart tender without ever having been boiled grey.
- Reduce and clarify the braising liquid through the chinois into a properly clear sauce rather than a cloudy pan gravy.
- Blend a portion of roasted red pepper into that sauce with the high-power blender for body without flour.
- Finish the shredded beef with a brief, hard char on the Big Green Egg's direct heat before it meets the sauce, a smoked edge the stovetop original cannot give.