Beef in a towel (Lomo Al Trapo)

The folks at Serious Eats have done it again. Kenji posted about the method of cooking beef tenderloin in Colombia (where his wife is from). Essentially it is a hunk of tender, lean meat encased in salt, wrapped in cotton, tied up and placed directly on the coals. It really is that easy as it turns out.

There are a couple of wrinkles, however. It is probably best if you cut the tapered end off the tenderloin. It makes the wrapping a bit easier. We left it on, and folded it back on itself. It worked fine. We also used cheesecloth and not a towel. I didn't want any dyes/man made materials in the towel. We used kosher salt (Morton's). But next time I may use something a bit more exotic.

Ingredients

1 whole beef tenderloin, trimmed, chain and silverskin removed. - About 3 lbs

1 box Morton's Kosher Salt (3lbs)

Enough cheesecloth to wrap the meat - ensure that there are four layers of cheesecloth to prevent the salt from falling through.

Butchers twine to tie up the wrapped meat and hold the cloth/salt in place

Method

About 30 minutes before you want to start cooking use a mixture of charcoal and wood to get a fire going in your grill. We used the Primo - the right size and shape. This won't work on gas - it doesn't get hot enough. In our case the thermometer in the lid registered 800F - so directly on the coals it was probably hotter.

Make the parcel of meat by spreading the 4 layers of cheesecloth out and covering with the whole box of Morton's salt. You will want the salt spread so it is nearly at the front edge of the cheesecloth. 

Roll the cheesecloth tightly, tucking in the ends. You need to ensure that the salt covers the whole tenderloin. Introduce a few sprigs of rosemary as well.

Tie the parcel off at 2" intervals using butchers twine and a butcher's/surgeon's knot.

Put the parcel of meat directly on the coals. Nestle it in and leave for 10 minutes or so. After 10 minutes, turn the parcel over and cook for a further 10 - 15 minutes (until the internal temp of the meat is 95 for rare, 105 -110 for medium rare. If those temperatures look low that's because you get a lot of carry over cooking with the salt wrapper. Don't leave a thermometer in all the time - most such thermometers are not capable of handling such intense heat.

Once the meat has reached the desired internal temperature, Take it off the grill and place in a heat proof pan.

As can be seen in the picture above, it looks pretty nasty at this stage. 

After it has rested for at least 30 minutes, cut open the parcel and brush excess salt off the exposed meat.

Transfer to the cutting board, ready for slicing

Brush further salt off, slice into 1 1/2" thick slices and serve.

As can be seen, this is pretty rare. It tasted absolutely amazing, however.

Serve with horseradish cream (prepared horseradish, home made mayonnaise, and a little yogurt). Roasted potatoes were well received too! Here's their recipe.

Pita Chips

Hardly worth writing about, one might think. But one would be wrong. You can buy some crisp, flavorless abominations in a bag - or you can make your own really simply. I tried using white and wholewheat chips. The white pita made far and away better chips. So here goes.

Ingredients

6 Plain white pita chips

6T olive oil

Salt to taste (about 1t)

Method

Pre-heat oven to 350F - 325 if using wholewheat pita. Cut each pita into 6 pie-slice shaped pieces. Open up each piece so that the inside is completely exposed.

Place the pita pieces rough side upwards on a wire rack over a sheet pan. Brush each piece with a little oil and then sprinkle on some salt. Place the loaded wire rack and associated sheet pan into the middle of the oven. Bake for about 11 minutes (slightly longer for whole wheat), turning the rack around front to back (not over) about 1/2 way through.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Cover.

Salt Baked Potatoes

We were at a an event where appetizers were passed around. One of the finger food dishes was baby baked potatoes split and topped with sour cream and chives. Perfect one bite non-messy finger food. They tasted so good, that we just had to them at home. These potatoes are small waxy potatoes - not the kind one usually bakes. So, what to do?
The answer - bake them in a bed of salt. The salt has several effects. It keeps the potatoes off the base of the cooking vessel so that the bottoms don't burn in the high heat of the oven; it seasons the potatoes; it provides some insulation when serving them so they don't cool off too quickly. Also they look quite pretty.

The picture is a "before" picture. We were too busy devouring them to take an "after" picture. We served them with grilled lamb chops, stir fried cabbage, mint sauce and lashings of butter.

Ingredients

Several evenly sized small red/white waxy potatoes (3/4" to 1" diameter)

Enough kosher salt to cover the base of your cooking vessel to the depth of about 1/2 inch

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 425F

Wash the potatoes and pat dry. They don't need to be bone dry. The salt will take care of that

Place the salt evenly in the bottom of a casserole dish. Try and avoid bare metal because salt can be corrosive. I used a Le Creuset casserole dish.

Place the potatoes into the salt bed, pushing down slightly so each potato is abut 1/3 covered. Place the larger potatoes near the edge of the dish and the smaller ones near the center. The edge gets hotter quicker, so they turn out cooked at about the same time.

Put the dish onto the center rack of the oven and cook for about 20 minutes. Turn the heat down to 300 and cook for another 15 - 30 minutes. The time range is there to give you a bit of a margin of safety. They are done before 30 minutes, but they will hold their heat nicely - if for example you forgot to heat the grill for the lamb chops. But that is another story

No wimpy food!

I have just come back from a few days in Boston - well Cambridge really where everything I had to eat could be summed up in one word - wimpy.

The Marriott used a kind of yellowy offering from a chemistry set to make a rather bland omelet - have they never heard of salt, I wonder? Anyway this yellow egg-like liquid made some of the worst tasting, rubbery breakfast food ever. The last day, I went to Sebastien's across the street - at least I knew they would use real eggs and the eggs were better. The fried potatoes were OK, but the textures were all off - and, again no salt. Anyone would think it had been the Boston Salt Party, not the Boston tea Party back in 1773.

Even the much vaunted Legal Sea Food was off its game a bit. My tradtional favourite there - the baked scrod - was no longer the work of art that it had once been. It now tasted like it was mass produced in some central kitchen where they had again lost the salt cellar.

I was therefore much relieved on Friday evening when our neighbors invited us for Tamales, which of course, are traditional amongst the Latino culture here for Christmas. Aha, at last food that tasted of something! Good hot sauce too, and some wonderful charro beans. Washed down with a couple of beers - ahhhh yes.