Asado Negro - Venezuelan braised beef

Asado negro is a slow cooked round roast, my favorite dish and my mom obviously is the queen at making it. I haven´t  tried this ever because I always though it was a really difficult process but I was wrong, it is easy to do it but it takes time if you don´t have a  pressure cooker (we don't have it so, I had to wait and wait), but if you do it takes less than 2 hours to get ready. oh! I gotta tell ya, Just the smell of the marinade in the morning brought me back home. Paddy did a great job on the marinade and, surprisingly, with the photographs too! It was so funny the way he wrote the directions, I loved it so much that I had to leave it like that!

Asado negro is ideal for dinner with friends and you can serve it with mash potato and salad! and a really good red wine!

Ingredients

(4-5 people)

For marinade

  

1 kg round roast

2 onions roughly diced

2 small carrots diced

1 ½ peppers (green and red) roughly diced

2 sweet chili peppers  

2 spring onions cut in half

1 leak diced

3 bay leafs

½ tsp of cumin

4 garlic cloves mashed

¼ cup of Worcestershire

4 Tbsp of vegetable oil

2 tsp of ground pepper

For cooking

4 Tbs of vegetable oil

1 ½ Tbs of sugar

1 cup of white wine

2 stock cubes or salt and pepper

Marinade Directions

Now, I’m not one for accurate ingredient lists. My philosophy when cooking is to just chuck things in and often just hope for the best! Fortunately, Eileen is here for that. Anyway, here is how I did it.

First, take the garlic and a few big pinches of salt and grind it together in a pestle and mortar. Add the mix to a small jar along with the Worcestershire sauce, pepper, cumin, bay leaves and four table spoons of oil, and shake it like a Polaroid picture.

Next, take your favourite knife and stab the meat like it owes you money (great stress relief, by the way). Once you’ve exacted your vengeance, place it in a large bowl, add the marinade and rub all the goodness in.

Now, veggies. Chop the lot roughly, haphazardly, however you want. Add the veggies to the bowl, and mix it all up with meat and marinade, making sure it all gets a good coating. Cover with clingfilm, pop in the fridge, cross fingers and hope for the best.

Cooking directions

Take the meat out of the fridge at least an hour before you plan to cook.

Heat up four tablespoons of oil in a large casserole dish. Once it's hot, add two table spoons of sugar, and cook it until it caramelises to a rich, dark brown colour. When ready, take your meat, taking off any vegetables that are stuck to it and cook it until dark on all sides (be careful not to burn it).

Add the vegetable to dish, followed by the wine, then add water until it is all covered. Scrape the bottom of the dish to get all the delicious burned on bits mixed up into the sauce. Cover and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for two hours. Remove the lid and simmer until meat is soft.

When the meat is ready, set it aside and let the sauce boil until thickened. When the sauce is thick, blend it with all the veggies and sieve it to remove any pulp. Put together the meat and the remaining sauce and heat for 10 min and voila!!!!!

Tips: 

• Check the salt at the end when the sauce is ready, if you need more stock or salt put some 

• If the sauce is not thick enough, make a mix with a little bit of water and cornflower and add it to the sauce to thicken 

• I had 1 tbs of sugar to the sauce  because I like it a little bit sweet but is your choice

• Place the remaining sauce in the freezer, we always have pasta with that sauce the day after dinner!!! Add a little bit of white cheese mmmm is just delicious!!!

Guests

Estefania Perez and Kevin Pereira joined us to be the reviewers they will post a comment later!.. trust them, they are venezolanos rajaos! 

from the left kevin, estefania, paddy