I realise that having a blog and writing about all the food one has cooked inevitably sounds like blowing one’s trumpet. This week I cooked something so delicious my trumpet blowing is going to sound like when Han, Luke and Chewie got their medals from Leia
Over a period of about 5 and a half hours, I turned nearly 3 kilos of beef short ribs into Asado short ribs, just by hanging the meat over a gently burning fire. There was no rub, no binder, no trimming, no prep at all really, just a sprinkle of salt and the heat from the coals.
The genesis of this was an amazingly perceptive Christmas present from my Mum and Dad which was a voucher for Philip Warren, the online butcher from Cornwall. Armed with this, and knowing we had folk coming for the weekend, I ordered the short ribs that they supply to The Ledbury which has just won its second Michelin Star. I figured that if the ribs are good enough for those guys, they would probably do for our small gathering. The ribs arrived as a pair of 3 bone joints, beautifully packed as always and that was that. Normally with short ribs you would take a bit of time to trim the extra fat and bits of silver skin from the upper surface but the Argentine way is to keep everything as it comes. I did sprinkle a good pinch of salt on each joint the night before as I am a convert to what people now call “dry brining” which I think is a way to sound clever, but really just means “sprinkle a good pinch of salt”.
On the day, my brother-in-law James and I lit the fire at about 9:15, speculating that we’d have embers to cook with by 10ish and that the ribs would take about 4 hours. We used both Globaltic birch charcoal and the Kameeldoring braai wood I got from Firemasters last year. The braai wood is mad stuff really; it is very dense indeed and it takes a proper whack with a maul to get even the skinniest looking pieces to split. I find it quite hard to light as well as it does need a good bit of heat to get it going. However, once burning merrily it does give out a lot of heat and burns for ages, which is perfect for this asado style of cooking. We alternated charcoal and wood as we fed the fire, and this seemed to work pretty well.
The beauty of the fire cage is that you can use the chains for hanging things over the embers – I’ve done this before but looking back at an earlier post, I made a note to myself to be slightly braver and let the meat cook for longer than seemed possible. The other trick I learned in previous cooks was that both the fire and the meat can be moved to best effect – if you get distracted by something and forget to feed the fire, just move the meat nearer to the coals. If you accidentally put too much charcoal on, move the meat away from the heat. All you need is a couple of big, sharp butchers’ hooks, pushed between the ribs and through the thick papery membrane on the back of the bones and you can then hang the ribs wherever you want them. The general rule of thumb is that, if you hold your hand next to the meat, you should be able to keep it there for 10 seconds without it getting too hot.
And then all you do is relax and let the embers do their thing. This is the whole point of Asado – you maintain the fire, move the embers, turn the meat and have a glass of Malbec. After a couple of hours, a bit of judicious testing can be done by slicing off a sliver for the chefs if you like. I used my Meater+ thermometer to keep an eye on the temperature, aiming for 95°c ish. The probe showed that the temperature plateaued for a while which we speculated might be due to the stall*, but we then realised it was more likely due to us neglecting the fire for a bit and there was just not enough energy going into the meat.
After about the 4 hour mark, the test slivers were starting to taste very good indeed, but still were a little chewy. After another hour or so, the probe was reading 93°c and we felt that was a good time to finish. Plus we were all starving at this point. In true Asado style, we cooked a lot of other stuff at the same time – we had rotisserie cauliflower, ember blackened red peppers, sausages, plus some hot cedar plank smoked salmon. It was all amazing but, in my view, the ribs were the star of the show. They had a real deep beefy flavour and, in the world of rubs and seasonings, it was a refreshing change to let the meat do the talking. The texture was different too – normally with braised short ribs, the meat becomes incredibly soft which might be good for your Granny and her dentures, but leaves a little lacking in what posh chefs call “mouth feel”. These ribs had a distinctive bite, akin I suppose to cooking pasta al dente.
After doing them this way, I suspect it will be difficult to do short ribs any other way. Not only is the finished product delicious, but it is difficult to emphasise how nice it is to light the fire, hang the meat and let time pass. Working in a sometimes high pressure job means it is beautiful to find a bit of time and use it to create something amazing which can then be shared with friends and family.
The Argentinians are definitely on to something.
*The Stall is a point in low and slow cooking where the fat and collagen in the meat starts to break down and are released as moisture which then evaporates from the surface of your joint. This has the effect of keeping the beef or pork cooler in the same way we sweat when we are too hot. Not really an appetising analogy, but there we are.
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