From Time/Life's Foods of the World: Latin American Cooking - 1968
Anticuchos
Skewered Spiced Beef Heart with Chile Sauce
To serve 8 to 10:
The Marinade:
1 cup red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp. finely-chopped, seeded and de-ribbed fresh hot red chile
4 tsp. finely-chopped garlic
2 tsp. ground cumin seeds
2 tsp. salt
freshly-ground black pepper
The Sauce:
1/2 cup dried hontaka (japone or mirasol) chiles
1 Tbsp. annatto (achiote) seeds, pulverized with a mortar and pestle
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. salt
A 4- to 5-pound beef heart, trimmed and cut into 1-inch cubes
In a large bowl, combine the vinegar, fresh chile, garlic, cumin, salt and a few grindings of pepper. Add the cubes of beef heart. If the marinade doesn't cover the beef heart, add more vinegar. Refrigerate, covered, for 24 hours. Remove the beef heart from the marinade and set them both aside.
Break the dried chiles in half and brush out the seeds. place the chiles in a bowl, pour 3/4 cup of boiling water over them and let them soak for 30 minutes. Drain the chiles and discard the soaking water. Combine the chiles and 3/4 cup of the reserved marinade, the annatto, oil and salt in the jar of a blender and puree at high speed for 15 seconds. (To make the sauce by hand, puree the soaked chiles through a food mill into a bowl. Discard any pulp left in the mill. Stir in 3/4 cup of marinade, the annatto oil and salt.)
Light a layer of coals in a charcoal broiler and let them burn until white ash appears on the surface. Or preheat the broiler of the oven to its highest point. String the beef heart cubes on skewers and brush them with sauce. Broil 3 inches from the heat for 3 to 4 minutes, turning the skewers frequently and basting once or twice with the remaining sauce. Serve hot.
Here's an alternate recipe that was given to me by a friend in Germany:
http://www.fooddownunder.com/cgi-bin/recipe.cgi?r=5116
He also warns not to grill too long, so that the anticuchos remain tender.
I have a couple of good-sized deer hearts and will, in all likelihood , give this a try in the coming days, unless my older boys use them first! If that does happen, I'll have to wait until we have a couple more.
One typical product of charcoal cookery, the delight of rich and poor, is anticuchos, the popular Peruvian equivalent of the hot dog but much better eating. Anticuchos are pieces of beef heart, somewhat less than one inch across, from which all tough tissue has been removed. The pieces are marinated overnight in spiced vinegar and then impaled by sixes on thin skewers of sharpened cane. While grilling over the coals, they are brushed with a hot sauce of oil, aji*, and spices applied, traditionally, with a feather or a strip of cornhusk. The sauce cooks into them, and more can be added after they are done.
Anticuchos are really delicious. they are served as hors d'oeuvre before a formal meal but are also sold on the streets and in parks, especially during fiestas. People of all ages are addicted to them, and children come back from celebrations boasting of how many they have eaten. Anticuchos of a sort can be made from other things, such as seafood, beef, liver or kidney, or of many meats in alternation on the skewer. But these are corruptions. True anticuchos are made only of beef heart, whose odd, crisp texture has much to do with their effect. Beef heart has the further advantage of being very cheap; a cookout of anticuchos is more trouble than one of hot dogs, but is immeasurably superior.
*Note from Tas - Aji is the Peruvian colloquialism for local chiles; mirasol, hontaka and japone chiles are all, as far as i can tell, different names for the same chile, which is universally known as aji in Peru.
Anticuchos are really delicious. they are served as hors d'oeuvre before a formal meal but are also sold on the streets and in parks, especially during fiestas. People of all ages are addicted to them, and children come back from celebrations boasting of how many they have eaten. Anticuchos of a sort can be made from other things, such as seafood, beef, liver or kidney, or of many meats in alternation on the skewer. But these are corruptions. True anticuchos are made only of beef heart, whose odd, crisp texture has much to do with their effect. Beef heart has the further advantage of being very cheap; a cookout of anticuchos is more trouble than one of hot dogs, but is immeasurably superior.
*Note from Tas - Aji is the Peruvian colloquialism for local chiles; mirasol, hontaka and japone chiles are all, as far as i can tell, different names for the same chile, which is universally known as aji in Peru.
Skewered Spiced Beef Heart with Chile Sauce
To serve 8 to 10:
The Marinade:
1 cup red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp. finely-chopped, seeded and de-ribbed fresh hot red chile
4 tsp. finely-chopped garlic
2 tsp. ground cumin seeds
2 tsp. salt
freshly-ground black pepper
The Sauce:
1/2 cup dried hontaka (japone or mirasol) chiles
1 Tbsp. annatto (achiote) seeds, pulverized with a mortar and pestle
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. salt
A 4- to 5-pound beef heart, trimmed and cut into 1-inch cubes
In a large bowl, combine the vinegar, fresh chile, garlic, cumin, salt and a few grindings of pepper. Add the cubes of beef heart. If the marinade doesn't cover the beef heart, add more vinegar. Refrigerate, covered, for 24 hours. Remove the beef heart from the marinade and set them both aside.
Break the dried chiles in half and brush out the seeds. place the chiles in a bowl, pour 3/4 cup of boiling water over them and let them soak for 30 minutes. Drain the chiles and discard the soaking water. Combine the chiles and 3/4 cup of the reserved marinade, the annatto, oil and salt in the jar of a blender and puree at high speed for 15 seconds. (To make the sauce by hand, puree the soaked chiles through a food mill into a bowl. Discard any pulp left in the mill. Stir in 3/4 cup of marinade, the annatto oil and salt.)
Light a layer of coals in a charcoal broiler and let them burn until white ash appears on the surface. Or preheat the broiler of the oven to its highest point. String the beef heart cubes on skewers and brush them with sauce. Broil 3 inches from the heat for 3 to 4 minutes, turning the skewers frequently and basting once or twice with the remaining sauce. Serve hot.
Here's an alternate recipe that was given to me by a friend in Germany:
http://www.fooddownunder.com/cgi-bin/recipe.cgi?r=5116
He also warns not to grill too long, so that the anticuchos remain tender.
I have a couple of good-sized deer hearts and will, in all likelihood , give this a try in the coming days, unless my older boys use them first! If that does happen, I'll have to wait until we have a couple more.
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