Ropa vieja

As tradition built it

Ropa vieja

Serves 4. About 1 hour 30 minutes.

Ingredients

The meat

• 1kg beef flank (or brisket or shoulder)
• as needed olive oil
• to taste salt and pepper
• to cover water
• 1 bay leaf

The sauce

• as needed olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 large onion
• 1 green pepper
• 1 red pepper
• 4 ripe tomatoes, crushed, or tomato purée
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 tsp, optional paprika
• 120ml vino seco (Cuban dry cooking wine)

Method

1. Heat oil in a large pot over a medium high heat. Salt and pepper the meat and brown it on every side.
2. Cover it with water, add the bay leaf and bring it to the boil. Lower the heat, cover, and cook 45 minutes to an hour, until tender.
3. Keep back a cup of the broth. When the meat is cool, shred it with a fork.
4. Heat oil in a frying pan and cook the garlic, onion and peppers, cut up first.
5. After a few minutes add the tomatoes, cumin, oregano, black pepper, paprika, the bay leaf and the wine. Mix well and cook a few minutes.
6. Add the meat and cover it with the reserved broth. Mix, correct the salt, and cook over a medium low heat 15 to 20 minutes.
7. Rest it a few minutes and serve hot, with white rice, congrí, yuca or tostones.

Notes

The recipe is Dennis Guilarte's, of GastroCuba. His page lists the wine without saying when it goes in; RecetaCubana adds it with the spices. Glotón Cubano simmers the meat 2 to 3 hours and the finished dish 30 to 45 minutes more, with green olives if you like. None of the Cuban sources uses vinegar or cilantro.

What a modern chef changes

Sous vide flank, clarified sauce, smoked char

Method

1. 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.
2. Reduce and clarify the braising liquid through the chinois into a properly clear sauce rather than a cloudy pan gravy.
3. Blend a portion of roasted red pepper into that sauce with the high-power blender for body without flour.
4. 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.