In Argentina, grilling meat is almost a religion. These are the capital sins of the Argentinian grill cook.
In Valiparri we tell you 10 things a cook should never do at the time of lighting a fire, grilling the meat and serving it.
1 – Use alcohol to light the fire.
Honored grill cooks consider this as a true sacrilege.
Using alcohol to evoke the Goddess of fire not only accelerates the burning process and prevents us from sharing a glorious “starter”, enjoying some good wine and cheese while everything is getting ready; but it is also quite dangerous.
2 – Throw any kind of wood to the fire.
The fire is not PumperNic’s hippo, to which you can give any kind of food. The fire should be cared for, relighted, seen as it grows -like a little child- without letting it grow into a monster. In this sense, it is pretty common that the fire may extinguish because the wood is not good or because one throws really large pieces of wood into the fire. There are here three tips to take into account: First, the wood that is going to be used should be seasoned and dry. Second, there are two kinds of wood which are perfect to light a fire, the “ñandubay” and “espinillo”; not “quebracho”. And third, people should be patient because large pieces of wood take at least an hour and a half until they are ready to heat our meat.
3 – Cover the meat with newspaper sheets
One of the biggest fears of every cook is that the ember is not enough to cook the meat.
That is why they implement all kinds of strategies to manage the long-desired “oven effect”. One of these strategies is to cover the meat with newspaper sheets. However, experts do not recommend it for sanitary matters.
4 – Cut the meat to check if it is juicy.
Cutting the meat “to see if it is juicy” should be punished by the Justice of Grill Cooks as a crime against humanity. That cut (small as it may be) makes the meat drain the tastiest juices and as a result we get an extremely dry cut of meat. This mistake is commonly seen in some cuts of meat such as loin, sirloin (Bife de Chorizo in Spanish) that lose all their grace when they are not juicy.
5 – Put frozen meat on the grill.
It happens more often than not. Perhaps you did the shopping the night before and decided to put the meat in the freezer overnight; for a “better conservation”, and then you put it straight away onto the grill.
Serious mistake. Those who do this will eat hard meat. Before putting the meat on the grill, the temperature should be tabilized: you should take it out from the freezer and into the fridge and after that, take it to the grill.
6 – Lower the grill too much.
As it was stated before, the amateur grill cook is always afraid of having the fire extinguished or not having enough ember to cook the meat. That is why, they may lower the grill until it almost touches the ember.
The result will be – inevitably – meat burnt on the outside. That is to say, that the meat will be cooked on the outside – or even burnt – but raw on the inside.
7 – Put the short ribs carelessly.
Short ribs are the core of a good barbecue and preparing them is so simple that it is unbelievable that, when putting them on the grill, many people make the mistake of putting them on one side, or even worse, with the bone facing upwards. Short ribs should always be placed with the bones facing down and remain there for hours.
Shortly before serving them, should they be turned around to finish the cooking.
8 – Serve meat on metal trays.
The barbecue may be perfect, but if it is cold, then all the effort made would have been in vain. That usually happens to amateur cooks who serve meat on the table using metal trays which reduce the meat temperature. The correct procedure would be to use wood trays, although it would be even better to take the meat to the table on small warming grills that keep the meat warm, as it should be.
9 – Accelerate the sweetbread and the chitlins cooking time.
When it comes to sweetbread and chitlins, one of the most common mistakes is to accelerate the cooking time, putting a lot of embers below them. This makes them terribly chewy. A good alternative – regarding sweetbread – would be to heat it and once it is solid enough to cut, slice it so it is crunchy.
10 – Be impatient.
We left this tip for the end because it is –without doubt – the most important. Every strategy aimed at accelerating the cooking time will end up in the wrong way: using fire cubes, briquettes, relight the fire with a hairdryer or turn the meat around as if it were a merry-go-round.
The barbecue is the praise for slowness and the holy indulgence of giving this procedure its deserved time.
