The Caribbean · Volume 45, The Arepa Coast, the Hallaca and the Titoté
Asado negro
Caracas, for weddings and baptisms
Illustration
- Time
- Hands on 4 hours · Waiting 24 hours
- Researched
- Researched from 92 sources in the brief
A dish of the mantuana households of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, cooked by enslaved and hired cooks who, the Caracas magazine Todo Lo Chic says, fused European stewing with papelón and ají dulce; the legend of the cook who rescued a scorched roast with sugar is folklore and we give it as that. The same magazine gives the method and the cut. The amounts are Mónica Silva Cárdenas's, from the Venezuelan newspaper 2001, for 2 kilos, with the wine and the papelón from Solangel González's recipe for 2.5. No Venezuelan recipe read uses ground paprika, since pimentón there means the sweet pepper, so the paprika row has no amount.
As tradition built it
Serves 6 to 8. 12 to 24 hours to marinate, 3 to 4 hours to cook.
Ingredients
The tradition's method, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them.
- 1.5 to 2kg muchacho redondo, the lean round of beef
- 2 large onions, for the marinade
- 4 cloves garlic, for the marinade
- 1 sweet red pepper, for the marinade
- 4 tomatoes, seeded, for the marinade
- paprika, for the marinade
- 1 tsp black pepper, for the marinade
- 1 tsp salt, for the marinade
- 500ml red wine
- 3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 120g papelón, grated
- 120ml (1/2 cup) oil
- 720ml (3 cups) water
Method
- Marinate the muchacho redondo with the onion, garlic, sweet pepper, tomato, paprika, black pepper and salt, the wine and the Worcestershire sauce, 12 to 24 hours.
- Melt the papelón in hot oil in a heavy pot until it is a dark caramel.
- Sear the meat hard in the caramel on every side.
- Add the marinade and water to come halfway up, cover, and simmer on the lowest heat 3 to 4 hours, turning now and then, until the meat is tender and the sauce is black and thick.
- Slice the meat and coat the slices in the sauce. Serve with white rice and fried plantain.
What a modern chef changes
The caramel controlled, the round kept pink inside its black
Rung 5
Method
- Take the papelón to 170 degrees on a thermometer, dark amber, before the meat goes in; past 180 it is bitter and nothing undoes it.
- Cook the round sous vide at 62 degrees for 24 hours, then sear it in the caramel and finish it 30 minutes in the sauce: the slices are rose inside the black.
- Reduce the marinade to a glaze apart and pass it through a chinois.
- Serve the sauce as a separate pour, which is a restaurant's habit and lets the cook see what the caramel did.