The Caribbean · Volume 12, The Sofrito, the Libreta and the Ninety Miles to Miami
Vaca frita
Cuba
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- Hands on 1 hour 30 · Waiting 30 minutes
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
As tradition built it
Vaca frita
About 90 minutes simmered, or 40 minutes pressure-cooked, plus 30 minutes marinating
Ingredients
- 800g flank or skirt steak
- 1 bay leaves
- to taste salt
- juice of 2 limes
- juice of 1/2 orange
- 4 cloves minced garlic
- a pinch cumin
- a pinch oregano
- a pinch black pepper
- 2 white onion, thinly sliced
Method
- Simmer the steak with bay leaves and salt until tender, roughly ninety minutes simmered, or forty minutes under pressure.
- Shred the meat and marinate it for at least thirty minutes in lime juice, orange juice, minced garlic, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper.
- Pan-fry undisturbed for five minutes to crisp.
- Mix in the thinly sliced white onion and continue frying to the desired crispness.
What a modern chef changes
Sous vide beef, dehydrated onion, direct-heat sear
Method
- Sous vide the flank steak to an exact, repeatable tenderness before shredding, replacing the more variable simmer or pressure-cook step.
- Dehydrate the sliced onion briefly before it goes into the pan, concentrating its sweetness so it caramelises rather than merely softens in the same short frying window as the beef.
- Flash-sear the shredded, marinated beef on the Big Green Egg's direct heat, or a hot plancha run just as hot, for the specific dry, crackling crisp the dish is named for.
- Fresh-grind the cumin in the spice grinder immediately before marinating.