25 August 2012

It gets Chile in Argentina

Stuffing my Matambre with whole spinach leaves was too difficult so I developed the chopped stuffing version

ThermoHubby John and I are once more scouting around for authentic recipes for our next Wine Tasting Dinner at Tongham Village Hall. The theme for this fundraising dinner is “An Andean Adventure” and we will be serving the food and wines of Argentina and Chile. And at a mere £22.50 per person for 8 courses and 8 wines, you can’t beat the value – except maybe with a Thermomix 😉

Anyway, we have been searching both on the internet and in real life, so when I had dinner at Gordon Ramsay’s Plane Food at Heathrow Terminal 5 before flying to the States to see my Dad, I was excited to try the day’s special starter. It was a typical Argentine dish called Matambre, a vegetable-stuffed roll of meat served with a traditional Chimmichurri sauce made from all sorts of wonderful herbs.

The olive oil gives the Chimichurri sauce a lovely sheen

I immediately looked on the web for a recipe (what else does one do when one is dining alone and one has a fabulous HTC Android smart phone to play with, I ask you?) and emailed it back to John. And now that I am back home after my whirlwind trip of just 3 days away, I am back cooking and taking photos and blogging. Hooray!

According to About.com’s South American Food section, ‘The word “matambre” is the name for a cut of beef, as well as the word for “shoe leather”. [Doesn’t sound too good this early on, but keep reading – please!] Matambre appears to be a contraction of the words “matar” (kill) and “hambre” (hunger), and it’s also the name of a wonderful dish from Argentina and Uruguay: flank steak rolled and filled with vegetables and either cooked over coals or braised in red wine. [How about steamed in the Varoma of my Thermomix??] It’s a dish that will definitely “kill” your hunger! … Matambre has a beautiful presentation. It’s often served as a first course in Argentina, but makes a nice luncheon dish or main course as well.’

So here I am with two pieces of Irish Steak for Frying (couldn’t find any flank steak at the supermarket), some veg and my trusty Thermomix and its Varoma steamer. Let’s cook!

Madame Thermomix’s Matambre (steamed stuffed steak rolls)
Our first version of this dish is made with beef, but we will shortly be trying Matambre with pork and also with chicken thighs to see which protein gives the best flavour and matches the best with our Argentine wines. Someone’s gotta sacrifice themselves for all this tasting!

Steaming meat does not add much colour so it's important for the stuffing to be quite lively — Steaming meat does not add much colour so it’s important for the stuffing to be quite lively

Ingredients
2 cloves garlic
50 g Parmesan cheese
2 carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
1 small red chilli pepper, top removed; seeds removed for a milder taste
30 g pitted green olives (optional)
2 large handfuls spinach leaves
1 kg flank steak, frying steak, pork fillet or boneless chicken thighs
Juice of 1 lime
2 tsp. dried oregano or 1 Tbsp fresh
1 tsp. sea salt (sounds like a lot but it really adds taste)
Several turns of freshly ground black pepper
1 red bell pepper, charred or roasted (or use a jar!)
4 hard-boiled eggs

We added some mint to the Chimichurri sauce for extra depth of flavour

Method

Peel garlic 4 seconds/Reverse Blade Function/Speed 4 ½; remove skins. Drop Parmesan cheese onto blades of Thermomix running at Speed 10; turn off. Drop carrot pieces, olives if using, and red chilli onto running blades at Speed 6; turn off. Now drop spinach leaves by handfuls onto running blades at Speed 4. Scrape sides of bowl with spatula.
Leave your stuffing mixture aside while you prepare your meat or chicken by covering pieces with cling film and pounding it thinly into a rectangle with a meat tenderiser hammer or a bottle of wine – empty, if you please!
Lay each piece of flattened meat on a piece of clingfilm which is at least 6 inches longer than the longest side of your rectangle. Sprinkle meat with salt and pepper, lime juice and oregano, then lay your filling out on the meat, leaving about 1 inch uncovered along a long side. Cut your roasted red peppers into long strips and lay them in the centre of your meat rectangles. Then place two hard-boiled eggs in the centre of each piece and roll tightly, wrapping your rolls in the clingfilm as you go. Tie off the ends with the excess clingfilm.
Place two rolls in the bottom of the Varoma dish and cover with the lid. Weigh 1200 g water into the TM bowl and add some salt. Steam your Matambre rolls on Varoma setting/90 minutes/Speed 2 or until the juices inside the clingfilm rolls run clear. [Note: the Thermomix timer only goes up to 60 minutes so you’ll have to put it on for another 30 minutes once the timer sounds. You could steam some new potatoes, for instance, in the Internal Steamer Basket during this time for an all-in-one meal.]
Carefully remove the lid of the Varoma – away from you so you don’t steam yourself in the process – and place it upside down on your work surface where it becomes a tray on which you can now place your Varoma dish. Let your Matambre rolls rest and cool for about 20 minutes while you make your Chimichurri Sauce, set the table, have a glass of wine, help with a child’s homework, etc.
While your Chimichurri Sauce is developing, go back and remove the clingfilm from your Matambre rolls. Slice them on the bias into ¾-inch/2-cm slices and arrange them on a warmed plate. Serve with your Chimichurri Sauce and vegetables of your choice.

Here is my chopped and mixed Chimichurri Sauce still in my Thermomix bowl

Argentinian Chimichurri Sauce

Ingredients
2 cloves of garlic
40 g peeled onion or shallot
½ to all of one small red chilli, seeds removed if you want a milder taste; left in for a real wow
a large handful each of fresh parsley and coriander/cilantro leaves and stems
a small handful of fresh oregano leaves or mint (optional)
50 g olive oil
the juice of one lime
Freshly ground sea salt and black pepper to taste

Method

Peel the garlic in your Thermomix, 4 seconds/Speed 4 ½/ Reverse Blade Function. Remove the skins and leave the garlic in the TM bowl.
Drop peeled onion or shallot and red chilli onto running blades at Speed 8; turn off.
Drop herbs by handfuls onto the running blades at Speed 7; turn off. Scrape sides of TM bowl with spatula.
Weigh in the olive oil and squeeze in the lime juice, plus a few good screws of salt and pepper. Mix 10 seconds/Reverse Blade Function/Speed 2 or until all the herbs are mixed in with the oil. Transfer to a bowl to serve.