Carne Asada al Recado Rojo Yucateca

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Charcoal grill or parrilla with hardwood lump charcoal
• •Heavy meat mallet or the flat of a cleaver
• •Volcanic stone molcajete
• •Wide glass or ceramic marinating dish
• •Long-handled tongs

Instructions

1. 1

   Pound the beef thin

   Lay each steak between two sheets of plastic wrap and pound with a heavy mallet or the flat of a cleaver until the meat is an even 1/4 inch thick. Yucatecan carne asada is not a thick steak with a pink center. It is a thin, fast-cooking cut that takes the smoke and the recado in seconds. If your steaks are thick, you have the wrong dish.

   Ask the carnicero to butterfly and pound the meat for you. In Mérida, the butchers do this work as a matter of course. No me vengas con atajos: if you skip the pounding, the meat will not absorb the recado and the char will not hit it right.
2. 2

   Build the recado rojo marinade

   Crush the garlic, peppercorns, oregano yucateco, cumin, and allspice in a molcajete until you have a rough paste. Scrape it into a bowl. Crumble the recado rojo paste over it. Pour in the sour orange juice and the salt, and whisk until the achiote dissolves into a deep brick-red liquid. Whisk in the melted manteca last. The lard carries the flavor of the recado into the meat the way water cannot. La manteca es el sabor.

3. 3

   Marinate the steaks

   Lay the pounded steaks in a wide glass or ceramic dish. Pour the recado rojo marinade over them and turn each piece until both sides are stained red. Cover and refrigerate for at least four hours, preferably overnight. The achiote and the sour orange need time to penetrate the thin meat. The pieces should look like they bled red ochre.

4. 4

   Build the fire

   Yucatecan carne asada belongs over coals, not gas. Build a hot fire with hardwood charcoal in a kettle grill or a simple parrilla. When the coals are covered in white ash and you cannot hold your hand four inches above the grate for more than two seconds, you are ready. The fire must be aggressive. Thin meat over a weak fire steams instead of chars, and a steamed carne asada is a sad carne asada.

   If you can get your hands on a few pieces of dried orange wood or mesquite from the península, throw them on the coals just before you grill. That smoke is the smell of a Sunday parrillada in any patio outside Mérida.
5. 5

   Grill the onions first

   Lay the thick onion rounds on the grate and char them hard on both sides, about three minutes per side, until they are dark on the edges and soft in the middle. Pull them off and pile them on a platter. They go alongside the meat at the table. In Yucatán, the grilled onion is not a garnish. It is part of the plate.

6. 6

   Grill the meat

   Lift each steak out of the marinade and let the excess drip back into the dish. Slap the meat onto the hot grate. You will hear it sizzle and smell the achiote and orange the second they hit the heat. Cook for 90 seconds, no more. Flip. Cook for another 60 to 90 seconds on the second side. The edges should char dark, almost black in spots, while the interior stays just past pink. Thin meat over a hot fire cooks fast. Stand there and pay attention. This is not a dish you walk away from.

7. 7

   Rest and slice

   Move the steaks to a wooden board and let them rest for three minutes. Slice across the grain into strips about half an inch wide, or leave them whole if your guests will cut at the table the way they do in Mérida. The juices that pool on the board are achiote-orange-lard and they belong on the next tortilla.

8. 8

   Set the Yucatecan table

   Pile the meat on a white porcelain platter with the grilled onions alongside. Set bowls of frijol colado, cebollas encurtidas, salsa de chile habanero tatemado, lime halves, and cilantro around it. Warm tortillas in a hand-woven servilleta. Each person builds their own taco: tortilla, beans, meat, onion, pickled onion, a few drops of habanero salsa, lime. That assembly is the dish. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.

Chef Tips

• •Naranja agria is non-negotiable for a real recado rojo. If you cannot find sour orange at a Latin or Caribbean market, the substitute is two parts sweet orange juice to one part lime juice, with a small splash of grapefruit juice if you have it. A pure lime juice marinade will not taste Yucatecan. The bitter note in the sour orange is the dish.
• •Buy your recado rojo at a Mexican market that turns over inventory. The good brands come from Yucatán itself, sold in small bricks wrapped in plastic. If it has been sitting on the shelf for a year, the achiote oxidizes and the flavor goes flat. A fresh recado smells like earth and pepper. A stale one smells like nothing.
• •If you serve this with anything other than corn tortillas, frijol colado, and pickled red onion, you have made a different dish. No flour tortillas. No yellow cheese. No sour cream. This is peninsular food and it has its own table grammar. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.

Advance Preparation

• •The recado rojo marinade can be made up to three days ahead and refrigerated in a sealed jar. The flavor deepens as the spices settle into the lard.
• •The meat can be pounded and marinated up to 24 hours ahead. Past that, the sour orange starts to break down the proteins and the texture turns mealy.
• •Frijol colado, cebollas encurtidas, and salsa de habanero tatemado all keep three to four days refrigerated and are better made the day before. The pickled onions in particular need at least four hours in the sour orange to turn the right shade of pink.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 170g)