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Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Chivito....sort of

The chivito is a national Uruguayan dish kind of like a philly cheese steak, only it is way better, is tenderloin instead of ribeye and doesn't have cheese whiz.

The chivito is a thin grilled beef tenderloin sandwich topped with ham, mozzarella, bacon, lettuce, tomato, onion and mayo. It has an interesting story behind it's origin and is very open to options. Go read Gera's guest post at Erica's My Colombian Recipes, trust me, you'll enjoy it.

Here's what I did tonight. It's somewhere between the Chivito Comun and the Chivito Canadiense versions that Gera wrote about.

I partially cooked bacon and then finished crisping it up on the Big Green Egg.

I toasted some kaiser rolls.

I sliced a partially frozen butt end of a beef tenderloin on the meat slicer into 1/4 inch steaks....steakettes maybe? Seasoned them with salt and pepper and tossed them on the Egg at 450f direct heat for 45 seconds.

Like that cast iron grate? I received it to test out from a fellow BBQ Brethren member and will be doing a full review in a week or so. Right now, I'll just leave it at "WOW".

As soon as I flipped the beef, we started topping them with Canadian bacon (instead of the traditional ham) and mozzarella. Let the beef go 45 seconds on this side too.

Then we topped it with the bacon, lettuce, onion, and tomato. Instead of regular mayo, I used a cumin-mayo. We served it up with some sweet potato fries and some of the cumin-mayo for dipping the fries.

I first found Gera's blog 4 months ago when I was googling for info on how to make the classic Milanesa sandwich, another Uruguayan classic. If Gera keeps this up, I'm moving my family to Uruguay.