Anticuchos

Beef heart marinated overnight in ají panca and grilled hard, basted with the marinade as it cooks.

Beef. Not vegetarian — contains beef.

Ingredients

For the skewers

• 1.2 kg beef heart, trimmed
• 4 tablespoons ají panca paste
• 1 tablespoon ají amarillo paste, as on its own page
• 6 cloves garlic, crushed
• 100 ml red wine vinegar
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil

To serve

• boiled potatoes, in thick slices
• cancha, as on its own page
• salsa criolla, as on its own page

Method

1. BEEF HEART, AND IT IS MARINATED OVERNIGHT IN AJÍ PANCA. Not steak. Heart is a working muscle -- dense, lean, faintly mineral, and much better than it sounds -- and twelve hours in an acidic chilli marinade is what makes it tender enough to grill in four minutes. Marinated for an hour it is chewy; made with sirloin it is a perfectly nice kebab and not this dish at all.
2. THE HEART IS TRIMMED HARD AND THAT IS MOST OF THE WORK. Every scrap of the white sinew, the fat and the silver membrane cut away, which takes twenty minutes and loses you a third of the weight. Any left behind is rubber on the skewer. Ask the butcher to do it if you would rather.
3. IT IS CUT INTO FLAT SQUARES ABOUT 3 CM AND THREADED FLAT, two or three to a skewer, so each piece lies against the grill rather than rolling. Cubed, the outside burns before the middle is warm.
4. THE GRILL IS AS HOT AS IT WILL GO AND IT IS FOUR MINUTES IN TOTAL. Two minutes a side on a screaming grill: charred outside, pink inside. Heart cooked through goes grey, dry and livery, and that is the one way this fails.
5. AND IT IS BASTED WITH THE MARINADE AS IT GRILLS, with a brush or a sprig of herbs, every time it is turned. The marinade has oil and chilli in it and builds a dark lacquer in the time the meat needs.
6. THE RESERVED MARINADE FOR BASTING IS SET ASIDE BEFORE THE MEAT GOES IN. Raw-meat marinade brushed onto nearly cooked meat is not sensible; a ladleful kept back in a separate bowl at the start solves it.
7. Heart trimmed of all sinew, fat and membrane, and cut into flat squares about 3 cm across and 1 cm thick.
8. The ají panca, ají amarillo paste made as on its own page, garlic, vinegar, cumin, oregano, salt, pepper and oil whisked together.
9. A LADLEFUL SET ASIDE in a separate bowl for basting.
10. The heart folded through the rest and left covered in the fridge OVERNIGHT, 12 hours.
11. Wooden skewers soaked in water 30 minutes.
12. The pieces threaded FLAT, 2 or 3 to a skewer.
13. Potatoes boiled and sliced thick. Cancha and salsa criolla made as on their own pages.
14. A grill or griddle brought to its highest heat.
15. The skewers grilled 2 MINUTES a side, basted with the reserved marinade each time they are turned, until charred outside and still pink within. Served at once on the potato slices with the cancha and salsa criolla.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Peru · All recipes