One of the most prized and expensive cuts of meat on the market is the tenderloin. In Argentina, the tenderloin is known as lomo. Pork tenderloin is called lomo de cerdo but for beef it is simply lomo; beef country remember. Tenderloin is a long tube-shaped cut of meat that runs along the spinal section. This muscle section of the cow does not get much of a workout , therefore the meat is extremely tender. Cook it right and you will be rewarded with a meat so succulent and tender you will feel like it is melting in your mouth.

Around the world, well where beef is popular, you often see tenderloin treated with luxury. Sliced medallions, also known as filet mignon, topped with creamy rich sauces. For true meat lovers, perhaps they are just wrapped in bacon on laid on a hot grill. In Argentina, it is not uncommon to see lomo treated in the same manor except at some asados you may see a whole slab of lomo cooked on a grill.

Now let’s get back to the topic of cooking lomo on a parrilla. Lomo is grilled either whole, sliced, or cubed. The latter is typically only for use on skewers, known as brochette de lomo and I’ll cover that later. No matter how the meat will be cooked, the outer part should be well trimmed of any fat and muscle membranes. Lomo is a very lean cut of meat and therefore will end up dry, tough, and chewy if cooked for too long. Therefore, you should not cook lomo past a medium. This is my personal opinion but if you are going to cook for a crowd who wants their meat cooked medium well to well done, use another meat. Tenderloin is just too expensive and too good to waste for that sort of nonsense. Would you buy a $100 bottle of wine just to guzzle it down like water?

Buying:

Lomo is offered in a variety of forms such as sliced, whole, trimmed, or untrimmed at the local butcher or market. Also, supermarkets or butchers allow you to buy lomo in vacuum-packed bags which have a longer shelf-life in the refrigerator yet are untrimmed. When purchasing a whole lomo, unless you are experienced in trimming, you should ask the butcher to do it for you. Slicing the meat on the other hand is quite simple, and therefore you can do perform that task yourself.

Preparing:

• Whole - You can leave the lomo as is or butterfly it. A whole slab of lomo has a thick end and a thin end, therefore some prefer to butterfly the meat at its thickest part. This will allow the meat to have an overall even thickness and also allows you to cook the meat faster. A medium-depth cut is made along the length of the meat and then the area is spread open. Many may argue that you should never butterfly a meat along the grain, which is what is done in this case, because the meat will lose juices and result in becoming less tender. This is another argument I’ll let others fight over. If you want nice round medallions then leave it whole and if you want a more flat-type steaks then butterfly it.
• Steaks - For your standard filet mignon type cuts, slice perpendicular to the length of the meat, which in this case is across the grain, to create portions that are a least 2 inches (5 cm) in thickness. To create large portions, often what you will find in parrilla restaurants, you’ll need to create a butterflied slice. Basically you create one large slice at least 4 inches (10 cm) thick. Then with that slice you cut across the grain as if to create two steaks out of one, except you only cut about halfway into the meat and spread it apart. (See image below)

The cut on the left is a medallion that has been butterflied while the two on the left are just plain medallions.

Cooking:

As you can probably tell by now I prefer to salt most meats before cooking, however with the tenderloin I will only salt the meat either right before pulling it off the grill or at the table. Whether cooking steaks or a whole lomo, you’ll want to cook the meat over a hot fire with the rack fairly low. If you are going to cook a whole un-butterflied lomo, place more coals underneath the the thicker part. Now here’s the trick for good lomo. You want the side facing the grill to have nice charred stripes, not too too much mind you, before flipping. But, you want that to happen before any juices start flowing on the top. If the juices start flowing and you want to char the other side, the meat will be at least medium-well by the time you are finished. Remember that if you want your meat to be cooked above medium. For steaks, since they will be quite thick, expect about 5-6 minutes per side. For butterflied whole lomo just a tad bit longer. For whole un-butterflied lomo, you should cook each side for about 10 minutes. I’m tossing out times that work for me on average. Every grill, coal amount, thickness of cut, etc varies therefore, try to use your best judgment.

Suggestions: It is not uncommon to find restaurants offering lomo a la parrilla topped with demi-glace loaded with mushrooms or peppercorns. Some even offer creamy cheese sauces. Give it a try.

If you love pork or I should say if you really love grilled pork, matambre de cerdo is a definite must on the meats to cook list. This thin cut of meat is basically a pork flank steak. Matambre de cerdo sucks up that smokey flavor from cooking over hot coals like a sponge. For this part I’ll explain how to prepare the meat solo, but there is another fantastic method of cooking it called “a la pizza” that I’ll cover later.

Buying:

Whether cooking the meat alone or along with other meats, factor in the usual 1 pound (1/2 kilo) of total meat per person calculation. The meat is most often sold well-trimmed, therefore little needs to be done before cooking.

Cooking:

Before placing on the grill you will need to score the meat with a knife or else the meat will curl while cooking. Lay out the meat on a cutting board and with a sharp knife lightly score both sides in a crosshatch pattern. The meat is very thin so try not cut all way through.

I like to season with salt right before cooking and I have never had any problem with the meat ending up dry. If you are in the other camp of salting later, well, do as you please. Matambre de cerdo cooks rather quickly therefore you should place it on the grill shortly before everything else is almost ready. Most average-sized pieces take about 20 minutes in total to cook. The area of the grill needs to be quite hot in order to seal in the juices and create a nice golden exterior. Flip the meat when the juices start to flow on the top and the meat starts to take on a whitish color. Once the flipped side toward the grill is golden, remove and serve.

Suggestions:

Squeeze some lemon halves over the meat before and after flipping to add a little zest to the flavor.

Matambre de cerdo is typically quite tender. Place a small piece between some bread and enjoy!

It is the end of the day. You have the urge to grill something but you don’t want to end up making a big deal out of it. After a quick run to the supermarket to grab a few items, you light the fire. Crack open some cold beers or a bottle of wine to kill the time. Finally, you are rewarded with this….

Chorizo + Bread + Chimichurri = Simplicity at its best.

…or barbecued pizza.

I’m going to continue off the beaten path for a bit because I just couldn’t resist a little more experimentation. I was reading SaltShaker the other day, very well written site by the way if you have not come across it yet. Actually before I go further, if you want the dish on restaurants and cuisine in Buenos Aires–with a dash of tourism, a dollop of culture, and a heaping spoon of humor– I highly recommend you checking it out. He must go out to dinner every night for how many restaurants reviews appear each week.

Anyway, I was reading a post over there titled “Pizza BBQ“, and for the five years I lived in Buenos Aires, I never got around to sampling pizza a la parrilla. I’ve enjoyed matambre a la pizza numerous times but that is for another post. Therefore, the pizza post inspired me to give it a shot on my grill. The idea has popped into my head a few times, especially after watching an episode from a series by the guy who was voted the UK’s most annoying tv personality: Ainsley Harriot. He cooked a pie on a standard Weber-type grill and although his flamboyance was indeed annoying, the pizza made my mouth water. Since I prefer my pies to have a golden crispy top I knew I could never achieve that on my parrilla. Why? Well, if you’ve seen my parrilla then you know there is no top like your standard grill, like the one Ainsley used, and directing a good amount of heat toward the top of the pie is out of the question.

So this past Saturday I decided to turn the inspiration into reality. I figured that since this was going to be pizza a la parrilla, that I should stay true to Argentina by using the most popular toppings; mozzarella and ham. Ham is the meat topping of choice throughout Argentina much like pepperoni in the States. Still, however, I felt something extra was needed to add some smokiness to the pizza besides cooking it on a grill. Morrones, which are roasted red peppers seemed like a good choice. They’re probably right behind ham on the pizza topping popularity scale. Morrones have a smoky flavor but no, I’ll try them another time. I wanted some kind of meat topping that I could cook on the grill beforehand. Beef, chicken, or lamb didn’t win any votes because I just feel that they aren’t great pizza toppings. Panceta ahumada, or smoked bacon, would be the perfect match.

First the dough. I like to let my pizza dough rise about an hour or two before use, so I proceeded to get that out of the way and let it rise while preparing the grill. Just your standard pizza dough. I wish I had a recipe to post but sorry; pizza dough is one of those things i make without measurements. Just in case I seriously burned the dough, I made enough for about two pizzas. I was determined to have pizza that night and if the first one failed, the second would go into the oven.

Since I wasn’t preparing a full blown asado, I knew I wouldn’t need to light up a huge amount of coals. Just a decent amount to cover the bottom of the grill so that plenty of heat would not only hit the bottom of the pizza but also in the surrounding area. I also needed to cook the bacon a bit before placing the dough on the grill, therefore I cracked open a 3 kg bag of lump charcoal and lit up about 2 kilos (4.4 lbs) off to the side. I could always add more later.

When the coals were just about ready, I pulled some off the pile and placed them under the rack to get the bacon going. To be on the safe side I added some extra charcoal to the fire. I wanted to give the bacon a crispy coating and just in case, needed to make sure I had enough coals for the dough later.

On went the bacon. I lowered the grill to the lowest setting in order to cook it fairly quickly. After about 10 minutes I give it the flip and then pulled it off ten minutes after that.

Time to make the pizza. In order for everything to run smoothly once the dough and grill were ready, I grated the cheese, sliced the ham and bacon, then prepared the sauce. A simple sauce of pureed canned tomatoes, olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano, basil, sugar, and a splash of lemon; sorry no recipe for that either. I then spread around the remaining pile of coals under the rack so that after rolling out the dough, I could immediately plop it onto the grill. About 10 inches, or 25.5 cm, seemed like a good height to set the rack. Still, fear was present in my head. Would the bottom blacken in less than ten seconds? Also, I preheated my oven in case the crust cooked too fast with the cheese partially melted. I figured if the problem arose I could just flash heat it under the broiler to finish it off.

I rolled out some dough to create a 14″ (35.5 cm) wide pie with the thickness of about a 1/4 inch. This was then placed on my trusty well floured pizza peel and with great caution, pushed onto the grill. Soon after it started to go a bit bubbly.

One of the best things about this type of parrilla is that you can peek under the rack in order to prevent casualties of burn. After about 6 minutes, the bottom was getting a nice brown texture. Time to flip and pull it off the grill in order to dress the side that has browned with toppings and sauce.

I sprinkled a little pizza adobo, a store bought mixture of red pepper flakes, basil, pimenton, and laurel, on top for some extra kick. Using my peel, I slid the pizza back onto the grill to finish it off.

The coals were not quite as hot as before, and I didn’t disturb them for a new blast of heat would have arisen if I knocked off the thin layers of ash coating. If the crust browned as quickly on this side as the other, then perhaps the toppings would be left behind on the heat race. Therefore a little extra cooking time could go a long way.

After about 6 minutes, everything was looking really great. Cheese was melting faster than I expected. I might just be able pull this off I told myself. A quick glance under the rack showed me that the crust was browning at a good rate.

A couple minutes later the cheese was fully melted and the crust appeared brown and crunchy. Since I prefer my pizzas to be finished with golden and bubbly mozzarella I debated whether or not to slide this pie under the broiler for a minute or so. No. The whole point of this experiment was to see if I could create an enjoyable pizza that was strictly cooked on the parrilla so to the plate it would go.

How did it turn out? Very good. I was quite pleased with myself actually. The crust didn’t have much in terms of the smokiness that I had expected; about the same as you would get with a pizza stone. I feared that the texture would be too dry but I was seriously mistaken. Slightly crisp the outside yet fluffy and moist on the inside; not chewy at all. However, I think it could’ve held up to more cooking on both sides to give it a more crunchy exterior. The toppings were not bad. Not the same texture as an oven cooked pizza but good nonetheless. Overall the pizza was very similar to one cooked on top of a pizza stone.

Would I do it again? Definitely yes, this is something I want to master. However, you won’t find me cooking this once a week. I think I could probably do two pizzas in a row but no more than that. If any guests want to eat pizza at my place it’ll come out of the oven.

Notes for next time:

I think I’ll cook the side I placed the toppings on longer next time. Also, I might rotate it a bit to brown the areas that were not exposed to the coals (see 3rd picture from above). Same goes for the second half of the cooking process. Although the cheese was thoroughly melted and the toppings were heated through, I felt it could have used a little more time on the fire. The crust needed a bit more crunch.