Greetings from Rio!

Home of the 2016 Olympic Games!

Nah I’m just fucking with you, I’m watching from home like any sane person would. I will admit it’s been a very US friendly games this time around and I’m certain that every single one of our chosen Olympians is performing strait up without the aid of any performance enhancing  substances.

/bullshit.

If you’ve been watching the games on the US NBC feeds let me make this a little more like the broadcasts.

“Now I may have me a little dick but I shore got a big swingin’ dick truck! We’ve had trucks in the family since my Grandaddy…And we’ve always bought our trucks from Overcompensate Motors…”

/30 seconds later

“Why June, your vagina looks simply fabulous! Whatever did you do?”

“I dyed it using Ladies Only Just for Pubes! Isn’t it amazing!”

/30 seconds later.

GODDAMMIT NBC STOP WITH ALL OF THE FUCKING COMMERCIALS! YOU’RE KILLING THESE GAMES YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES!!!

STOP!!!

Christ.

Anyway, today’s menu was clearly inspired by the Olympic games and we’re going to get all festive up in this bitch – Brazilian style.

We’ve all been in a Brazilian state of mind around these parts both due to the Olympics and after reading our own Balls Of Steel’s incredible write up on a visit to Rio. After all of the scare tactics and doom and gloom forecasts prior to the games I am happy to report that so far, knock on wood, the games have gone off surprisingly well. Rio has turned from a Zika ridden 3rd world death trap to a city that has the entire world ready for a visit. Shit yeah, I want to visit too.

I felt that the least I could do to keep the Rio love going is to prepare a meal with a Brazilian theme. Today we are going to be making Brazilian style “gaucho” flank steak and we will be sipping on some caipirinhas, the national drink of Brazil. What constitutes a “gaucho style” steak to be considered Brazilian? Because I said so dammit!

First let’s talk about the caipirinha.

In the Rio post that Mr Balls wrote, he mentioned an Anthony Bourdain episode where he visited Brazil and consumed his body weight in this strange, exotic and oddly enticing beverage. Everyone in this episode was sipping on this drink and that sure as shit made me thirsty for one. The drink is similar in ways to a mojito in that it involves strait alcohol, some ice, lime, sugar and some muddling of the ingredients. The main difference is the mojito uses rum while the caipirinha uses cachaca. What is cachaca you ask and what’s the difference between it and rum? Well allow me to retort.

According to the wikis: “The major difference between cachaça and rum is that rum is usually made from molasses, a by-product from refineries that boil the cane juice to extract as much sugar crystal as possible, while cachaça is made from fresh sugarcane juice that is fermented and distilled.”

Boom! Knowledge!

From what I’ve seen so far most of the cachaca imported to the US is white as opposed to rum and it’s dark variant. I may be wrong on this since I’ve only been fucking with cachaca for about  year or so but after buying three different brands/bottles all of them have been white or clear.

You’re probably not going to find cachaca (pronounced ca-sha-sa) at your average liquor store but if you are lucky enough to live near a large scale liquor outlet, you should be able to find it. It’s probably stored next to the rum. We have a couple of liquor outlets here in L.A. Bevmo and Total Wines, that both have incredible selections of alcohol. I can never go in one without feeling like Nick Cage in “Leaving Las Vegas.”

Anyway, acquire some cachaca and let’s make one of these things.

Caipirinha!

2 1/2 oz of cachaca – yep

2 teaspoons of sugar

1/4 of a lime cut into wedges

Bunch of ice.

Cut your limes into 1/8ths like this.

Put a wedge of lime in a glass along with the sugar, then muddle together.

Next we’re going to add in the cachaca, yes that really is 2 1/2 shots worth of strait alcohol we’re putting in this motherfucker, these things are boozy as fuck!

Finally fill the rest of the glass with some ice.

Here’s the trick to surviving a few of these drinks; let the ice melt down some and constantly keep the glass filled with ice. Seriously keep the glass choked with ice or your day is going to be significantly shortened. They are clean, boozy and tasty with that citrus hint and the sugar. Delightful.

Despite our best intentions man shouldn’t live on alcohol alone. I know! I’ve tried.

Let’s make something else that is near and dear to the hearts of Brazilians, a shitload of charcoal grilled meat!

Fuck yes!

Quick note before we get started, this is my very own recipe. There are a few sort of like it BUT THIS ONE IS MINE! I call it Charlene! No I don’t really.

Grilled Marinated Brazilian Style Flank Steak!

Since it’s a marinade, of course we are going to let it chill in the refrigerator but this time NOT overnight. We only need to marinate for 4-5 hours. Only 4-5 hours he says. You know how this motherfucker rolls!

1 flank steak between 2 1/2 to 4 pounds.

For the marinade:

2 cups of red wine, a malbec would be a very fitting wine but I used some real French burgundy that I had on hand.

5-6 cloves of crushed garlic

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon of red pepper flake

1 teaspoon of crushed dried thyme

2 bay leaves

1/3 cup of olive oil, vegetable oil would be fine too.

Rinse that meat and pat it down dry. Add to a one gallon freezer bag along with the rest of the marinade ingredients, try to squeeze out as much of the air in the bag as possible so that the meat is being continually touched by the marinade. Refrigerate for 4-5 hours.

I brined a couple of chicken breasts along with the flank steak because my plan was to cook this hunk of flesh to a perfect medium rare and not a bit more. There were a couple of folks in attendance who can’t handle medium rare so I gave them the chicken option. They ended up choosing both.

Let’s make a quick chimichurri to garnish the meat.

Chimichurri:

5-6 cloves garlic minced

2 jalapenos minced

1/4 cup of red wine vinegar

1 bunch of parsley chopped fine

Handful of fresh oregano chopped fine

Juice of 2 limes

1/2 cup of olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Add everything but the oil to a bowl and mix together. Slowly add in the oil while whisking and there you go. Cover with plastic wrap at room temperature until the steak is cooked.

h/t to Tyler Florence for this one.

Start up your charcoal grill, for this dish the charcoal and it’s smokey finish are critical. Take the steak out of the refrigerator and let it come up to room temperature, about 1/2 hour. This step is pretty critical too. Add a lot of salt and pepper to the meat. A lot, you want to see the salt and pepper on the meat before you grill.

When the coals are smoking hot, place the meat over the hottest part of the fire.

Look at that sexy fucking thing! See the deep rich red that the wine imparted to it? God. Damn!

We’re going to cook for just 4 minutes per side. Cook the first side and then flip with some tongs.

You want a bit of char on the outside for some added flavor. Four more minutes then remove the meat from the fire and let rest on a plate large enough to hold it for about 5 minutes before slicing.

Now. We need to talk about this cut of meat. Flank steak is very lean and when prepared properly is very delicious. Prepared improperly? Not so much. One of the things you MUST do is understand the grain of this meat and be sure to slice against the grain. You can enlarge either of the above 2 photos and get a good idea of the grain. It runs the entire length of the slab of meat so when we slice it we are going to have really long, thin slices. Here’s a good photo of the grain of the meat and the proper slicing technique.

You miss-cut on this step and you won’t have a tender juicy slice of meat. You will have a big mouthful of chewed up cow cud that’s almost impossible to chew. Do this part properly and you will be rewarded.

For a full meal, I made some basic baked potatoes and a spinach salad and considering the leanness of the meat and the cut of the meat, I must say, this was a pretty goddamn healthy meal coming from me.

Let’s look at that steak with the chimichurri and the bottle of cachaca again.

I don’t know about you but I’m getting a pretty sizable food boner. The meal is rich with flavor and jazzed up with the chimichurri, the meat is just so goddamn meaty and delicious and I’m going to be honest, I drank some delicious frosty beers with this and did the caipirinhas later. Incredible stuff.

“Now if you are having trouble achieving the proper food boner, we can help that too. For the low low price of…”

Everyone: “Shut the fuck up!!”

Now it’s off to watch the rest of the Olympics and dream of Rio!

“U-S-A, U-S-A!!”

Brazilian crowd: “BOOOOO!!!!!”

Thanks for reading folks.

Peace!