hello this is chef john from food wishes calm with ropa vieja that's right we're
doing one of the national dishes of Cuba which believe it or not translates to
old clothes since apparently someone way back when thought the finished recipe
looked like a bunch of torn old tattered clothing but anyway it's been my
experience that for something to become a national dish it has to have a lot
more going for it than just a cool name and this incredibly delicious braised
beef dish certainly does so with that let's go ahead and get started by
prepping some flank steak which is what I have right here and what we'll do
first is cut this in half across the grain okay you see those meat fibers
we're gonna cut straight across those two divide this into two and then once
that set we will season this very generously with a mixture of kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper and of course cayenne and I should mention
modern versions of this recipe often use Chuck instead of flank steak because
people say it's cheaper which is true and it works just as well which in my
opinion is definitely not true but anyway we'll talk more about that later
and for now we'll just head to the stove where we're gonna Brown this on both
sides and a little bit of olive oil over high heat and I'll be doing this one
piece at a time so as not to crowd the pot and not only are we doing this to
flavor the beef but we're also doing it to flavor the pot because by the time we
have both of those pieces seared we are gonna have a beautiful looking found on
the bottom of our pot which is the culinary term for all that caramelized
goodness and creating that before we start braising the recipe is one of the
secrets here so let's set our heat to medium and then to all those beautifully
brown bits we'll go ahead and add one sliced red onion along with some sliced
garlic cloves and a pinch of our salt mixture and we'll go ahead and cook that
for a few minutes stirring until they just start to soften up at which point
we can go ahead and start introducing the rest of our seasonings and this
recipe features lots of my favorites including some ground cumin some paprika
some dry oregano preferably Mexican but any type of work we will also sneak in a
little more cayenne as well as some ground clove and a little touch of
allspice and then what we'll want to do once all that's in there
cook this terrine for exactly one minute and as you might be able to see our font
is getting better and better and by better and better I mean browner and
browner and then what we'll do after cooking those spices for about a minute
let's go ahead and deglaze with a splash of white wine and I'll do glaze means is
releasing all that goodness off the bottom of the pan using liquid okay
there should be a saying a great cook never needs to scrub a stewpot but
anyway we'll pour in some wine as well as some tomato sauce or crushed Tomatoes
and then we can go ahead and finish off our braising liquids with some chicken
broth or or if times are tough you could use water and we will go ahead and give
that a quick mix before carefully placing our beef back in along with of
course any accumulated juices oh yeah don't forget those and by the way if
you're Cuban and you're mad I did not put more tomato in this I'm sorry but my
version does not have quite as much as in the classical versions all right I
like my ropa vieja a little more pepper and B forward and by the way if you're
still looking for a name for your garage band you could do a lot worse than be
forward but anyway what we're gonna do here is add a little more salt
at which point we'll reduce our heat to low cover this and simmer it for two
hours which is something that's just absolutely unheard of for flank steak
which is usually cooked quickly to a medium rare but trust me for this recipe
it really does work out and then you remember that thing I'm always telling
you about how you should try to remember what you forgot well in this case it was
a couple bay leaves so I went ahead and toss those in and covered it back up and
continued braising down low for two hours at which point the meats gonna be
done for this stage but not quite fork tender
all right there's definitely still going to be some resistance when you push that
fork in but that's totally fine because as you'll see that beef is gonna cook
longer after we tear it up so at this point I really don't think we want to
fall on apart tender and then what we'll do after our beef is braised is remove
that from the heat let it cool down to room temp because I think this comes out
way better if you refrigerate it overnight and finish it the next day so
this step is optional and you could just carry on if you want but I'm gonna go
ahead and let that cool and then cover it and pop it in the fridge overnight
and then what we'll do the next day is go ahead and pull that out and while
this is still all nice and cold we'll go ahead and remove our
to a plate while at the same time turning our heat up to medium-high
because we do want this to come back to a simmer and while we're waiting for
that we could move on to the tearing of the beef and because we did go with
flank steak this is going to be as easy as it is enjoyable because by tearing
with the grain we're gonna get these beautiful shreds of beef that are all
gonna be roughly the same length and there's obviously going to be a lot of
variation but as far as a whip I'm shooting for something between 1/8 and
1/4 of an inch although have you said that you can tear this into a smaller as
large pieces as you want I mean you are after all the Omar Sharif
of tearing your beef oh and if you can try to get to look like old torn
clothing or like the frayed bottoms of those cut-off denim shorts you try to
make that one time you know the ones where the pockets were longer than the
bottom of the shorts that was not a good look but anyway we're gonna go ahead and
shred that beef as shown and then once our flank is tore up from the floor up
we can head back to the stove for final production where we will add a whole
bunch of sliced peppers to our now hopefully simmering mixture in ideally
these peppers have been fire roasted and then cut up which I did not take the
time to do but don't worry chef Jon's got tricks
okay what we'll do is sneak in a little bit of smoked paprika which will add a
little bit of a subtle smoky note in the background we will also add in another
couple key ingredients a couple tablespoons of drained capers as well as
some sliced green pimento stuffed olives oh we have those are not just for
martinis and we can also at this point go ahead and toss in our torn beef and
then we'll take a spoon and give that a thorough mixing and we'll wait for that
to come back to a simmer and then if we want to balance all those sharp briny
flavors we can go ahead and add one optional spoon of sugar all right up to
you but I do think that helps balance things out and that's it once we have
all that stirred together we'll go ahead and reduce our heat to medium and we'll
simply let this simmer until our peppers are soft and our meat is tender which
I'll gaston say is going to take about 15 or 20 minutes but only you will know
by checking and tasting and then what we'll do once we think it's cooked long
enough besides of course tasting and checking the seasoning is we will turn
off the heat and stir in a nice big hand full of chopped cilantro or if you
wanted these people the things cilantro tastes like poison you can use some
chopped parsley instead which is not uncommon but I love cilantro so I'm
using that and that's it once that stirred in we are ready to serve up next
to hopefully some rice and black beans as well as some plantain chips which yes
we're a little too perfectly arranged and I went ahead and finished that off a
little sprig of cilantro and that's it my ropa vieja is ready to transfer into
my cabeza sorry but mouth didn't rhyme and that my friends is one of the most
delicious most flavorful most interestingly textured braised beef
dishes you will ever have okay despite breaking all the rules about cooking
with flank steak this really is magnificent although what's not
magnificent is eating a bay leaf so pull those out oh by the way this sauce
really is insanely tasty so feel free to use that same formula to braise other
things and while it is true this would be cheaper to make if you use chuck
roast also known as beef shoulder it is just not the same
okay the beef flavor will be similar although I do think the flanks a little
beefier but the real difference would be the texture of the torn meat all right
Chuck is just gonna shred into smaller pieces and it's not gonna have the same
effect okay so if you can afford it please go with the flank steak even if
it means having to wear those old clothes a little bit longer but anyway
no matter which cut of beef you end up using I really do hope you give this a
try soon so head over to food wishes comm for all the ingredient amounts of
more info as usual and as always enjoy
you