I got SCHOOLED by the Argentine Pitmaster the Pope Trusted!

The right first cook to do on my new Santa Maria grill has to be an Argentine asado barbecue, a full barbecue. But I've never done this before. And I'm good at grilling. But there are guys who study their whole lives just to be able to do this. It's more of an art than a science. And I'm a little over my head. So I got to find somebody who can help teach me how to do this so I don't mess up this cook. So we're going to Miami. So when Pope Francis, who was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, came to the United States and he wanted good, authentic Argentine asado cooking, he went to a restaurant called Rincón Argentino in Miami. And we reached out and the fine folks who run that restaurant have agreed to teach me and you about Argentine asado grilling and how to pull this off. Okay, we made it to Rincón Argentino. I'm so excited. These people think about meat the way that you and I think about meat. But they cook it differently and they're going to teach us. I can't wait to see what we learn. Let's head inside. I'm Carlos Rossi. I'm the general manager of Rincón Argentino in Carl Gables Ford. Rincón Argentino is the kind of place that if you like good wines, good drinks, and especially if you like meats, this is the place for you. You're going to get an abundance of every kind of meat and meat cuts in different styles, different cuts. And especially because we tend to do everything slow cooked. You need to take your time and enjoy the experience. This is not the place that you want to eat in a hurry, the American way, and leave in a hurry. Hello, I'm Mark here. He is the asado, or he is the asado. When I do ribs, six, seven hours, it's similar for this. So he cooks it, recooks it, and then he'll finish it here. That's correct. The fire is surrounded. Right, so this is the same function. So this is really interesting, the airflow. You guys have seen me do lots of airflow management in cookers. So here, this exhaust actually has a fan that's blowing down, and the air comes down and across the fire. So the smoke is coming up into the meat. So we're getting the maximum flavor on the meat and cooking the meat this way with the exhaust over on the other side. So now I'm going to have to figure out how to control airflow for the fire that we're going to be cooking on later so that I get the air in the front coming up and probably put the meat on the back so that I can create that same thing. This is a little intimidating, guys. Like, I hope I don't screw this up. This is going to be a big cook. But this makes a lot of sense. The flow of the air pushes the smoke to the meat. That's how we control it. The fire is burning hot, probably around 650, 700 degrees, right about where the meat is here. Probably 450, 500 degrees on those back there. And then how often will you rotate the sides? Okay, so guys, what this translates into is multiple areas on the grill. So as he's moving the meat closer and further, I'm going to have all the meat on at the same time. So I'm going to have to have hot spots on the grill and cooler spots that are still warm enough that when something's done, I can keep it warm without drying it out. This is really a genius. I want to taste everything though, Mark. That's fine. Mmm. The outside, the skin of the sausage is so crispy. I can hear myself crunch when I bite into it. And the inside is so juicy and tender. This is how it's supposed to be. Cheers. This is incredible. This is just blood sausage and salt. This is all it is. Okay. Let's try this sirloin steak. All right, I want you guys to see something. This is a perfectly cooked steak and this man doesn't own a thermometer. Cheers. When I grow up, I want to be you. Thank you. That'll be a skirt steak. The skirt steak. Okay. I don't know how to describe this. And it melts in my mouth. And you cooked it over direct heat the whole time. Of course. I don't know if I can do that. I'm gonna try. But that is, it is so tender and normally you have to marinate the skirt to get it this tender. I mean, not like you do a plank, but this is, right? It's time to go get some meat and head back and cook it. And I gotta be honest with you guys. I'm not gonna do as good a job as Omar. I'm gonna do my best and I'm gonna use what I learned, but it's gonna take me years of practice to get to half as good as my new friend is. So I'll meet you at the butcher. All right, so we're coming up on Meat and Bones retail shop. They actually have a retail butcher shop here in Coral Gables, Florida and a couple others around South Florida, plus the mail order business for folks like you and me, so we can get our hands on all of this. We're gonna meet Gabriel and he's gonna introduce me to his partners for the first time. And I think they've put together a package of meats that are supposed to be perfect for our asado cook. So let's head in and meet them and see what they put together. Gabriel, how are you, my friend? It's good to see you. Awesome to have you. Thanks for putting this together. Of course, man. So here's Luis. Hey, Luis. Erlan. Nice to meet you, finally. Erlan. And our boy, Eric. Hey, Eric, how are you? Good to meet you. You wanted to explore Argentinian cuts? Yes. So that's what we're doing. We pretty much got the whole thing out. So you have some provoleta. Provoleta is aged provolone cheese. Chimichurri for the meat, which is, it's fun. It says grilled, but this is your? Yeah, we make it pretty much every week. This is actually Argentinian salt, which is just coarse salt. I mean, it doesn't really have, I guess it doesn't say it's special, but it is, I think it actually does in the time class. Yeah, but this is what I actually use for anything I cook. Then from right to left, you have the tri-tip, which is the colita de cuadritos. No cap. Normally, Argentinians leave the cap on. Right. We trim it out for the American market. Do you think that's gonna make a big difference, like the Argentinian leave the cap on to get the extra flavor? The marbling in this one is so high that you don't need that cap, to be honest. Then we have the flank and short ribs, which is the asado de tira. The asado de tira is typically one of the most delicious things you can eat. My personal favorite is actually the flat. The flat is the vacío. This is crazy marbling. Very good cut. If I were to choose what to put chimichurri on, that would be, this is our outside skirt, which is the entraña. We actually don't trim it as much. We leave a little bit of fat because it's a thin cut, so you wanna cook this over as high heat as you can. So don't do this low and slow. Get it on and off. This one is long and slow. This one is high. Then typically you would grab these two bad boys. So remember we discussed the costillar. The costillar is basically the side of a beef. And back in the 1990s in the US, we stopped doing sides of beef. We went into what's called box beef. Now we have this. It's not as sexy. It's a lot smaller. But you do have the same flavor, the same three bones. So we've got beef back ribs. This is what I would think it's closest to a costillar. It's delicious. Then Kansas. The Kansas is a bife de chorizo. Con hueso. It's with bone. So Kansas is just a New York strip with a bone. And the most important part of any Argentinian asado are these three things. These three bad boys, right? And we actually looked far and wide to find the best we could. The morcilla as well. The morcilla is a blood sausage. Why have I not eaten this? The Argentine blood sausage. It's blood. Pig's blood. And the last one is a salchicha parrillera. That's what they call it. In Brazil, they go by linguiça. It is very similar to a chorizo, thinly cut. It's also delicious, cooks quicker. So I think with this video, instead of having like the whole cook and then this long tasting where we're cooking 10, like the way that when I've been in Buenos Aires, it's as it's ready, it's ready. Maybe just, we just cut up the sausage on the grill and eat it while all the rest. If you put American barbecue and South American barbecue, American barbecue is a single guy cooking throughout the whole day. And then everybody gathered to eat. South American style is, come guys, let's light it up and start cooking and eating together. And make a whole day out of it. That's how I do it at home. And that's how I recommend to do it. Everybody's more involved. It's not as formal. And everything gets eating as it's ready. You're not thinking about the timing. It's ready, let's eat it. You want some more of that? Let's throw some more of that in. I'm getting hungry just thinking about this cook. Cool. So now, Gabriel, we've got how many different SKUs do they have to find in the description to get all of this stuff? Only one. Only one, right? We'll make it easy. So we're gonna make a bundle, right? And so the link for that bundle is gonna be emv4.me slash asado. It'll be really easy. I'm gonna put it up on the screen and I'll put it on the description so you can find it. But you're gonna get this whole kit with all of this meat, including the salt and the chimichurri and the provoleta and all of the meat in one box so you can duplicate, maybe even do better than I'm doing. I'm really scared of this cook. I'm hoping I don't mess it up. There's a lot of risk, right? Yeah, there's a lot of risk, including looking bad in front of my daughter. Okay, so you guys, you understand what's ahead of me. Let's get this stuff put together in a cooler. Yep. And I'm gonna head to the airport and fly back with Precious Cargo here and then it'll be time to cook. That's a plan, brother. All right, thank you guys for working with me. Thank you, it was awesome having you. Great to have you. Thank you. Thanks. Eric, good to meet you finally. It was a pleasure. Wow. So the Santa Maria Grill is different than anything I've ever showed you. Matter of fact, different than anything that I've ever cooked on. So I'm gonna take a minute and show you how I light the fire and how we set this thing up. So I'm gonna start by taking out the wood holder from the brisera. Now the brisera is this piece over here on the right and this is where we're actually gonna make our own charcoal from wood. I'm also gonna build a fire over here in the main cook chamber or at least part of it. Now notice this grate is right here, actually can be raised or lowered. So I'm gonna raise it all the way up so I can work underneath building my fire. So let's get some charcoal in here. Now I'm gonna be using charcoal as my base instead of just starting with wood. Part of the reason is that this Jealous Devil Chunks XL Lump Charcoal is made from Argentinian Quebracho wood, which is realistically what they'd be using in Argentina at an asado. I'll drop the wood holder back in and I'm ready to light. Say hello to my little friend. So for the wood today I'm gonna be cooking with pecan primarily because you can't get Quebracho wood in North Carolina, but pecan's gonna be a good hard wood that's gonna be nice and tasty for our cook. Okay, so it's been a little bit over an hour and the original coals that I had over here are ready and I'm just raking them over here and making a nice coal pile over here. The next step now is to get the grate into the right position. So Omar told me that I should be able to hold my hand over for 10 seconds, not more, not less. All right, let's see how we do. Seven, ow, eight, nine, yeah, this is 10 seconds, okay. So we've got the grate where we want it. We're gonna let it heat up at that level over the coals and let's go get our first piece of meat ready. All right, so it's been about 40 minutes and you can see here the salt is absorbing and the heat is starting to work and boy, this just, it's glistening and see how the fat is really popping here. I think that's a good sign. I don't know for sure it's a good sign, but I think so. So I'm gonna turn it over and give the meat side a little bit of exposure to that indirect heat. And we saw Omar throw a little salt on the fire, so I'm gonna do that too. I don't know if that does anything, but it's authentic. All right, let's get out our next piece of meat. All right, so we're at the two hour mark. Let's take a look at what this looks like here. Oh, this is starting to look really good. You can see how it's crisping up. It's taking on that smoke. I'm gonna flip it this way, keeping the piece that has less meat, the less thick side towards the fire. Let's take a look here at our beef back ribs. They've been on for a little over an hour. We're gonna keep these going. I'm gonna put more wood on the fire to generate more coals because when we come back, we're gonna be putting another piece of meat on. Okay, kids, it's about to get fun. And by the way, no, this is not the rest of it, but this is the next stage. I've got two of these and there'll be two in your bundle. But to be honest, I'm not so confident in my ability to do cheese on the grill without it melting into the fire. So I'm only gonna do one and we'll see how I do. All right, let's go throw this one on. This is linguiza cured pork sausage. I'm just gonna spread this out a little bit. Let's get this chorizo on here. And now we'll do the morcia, the blood sausage. All right, the cheese is melting, but it's coming off the grill okay. I think we're gonna have good grilled cheese. Fingers crossed. All right, and finally the traditional asado beef ribs, the flanken cut. So I'm gonna start these off a little bit far from the fire. Wouldn't be Argentine barbecue without salt. All right, we saw Omar basting the meat with chimichurri. So we're gonna try that on the flanken ribs and I'm gonna put a little bit on some of the beef ribs as well. Okay, it's time to taste the first two things. One that was planned, the cheese. This is provoleta. The other, the tri-tip, because I screwed up and put it on too early and I might've even overcooked it. So we'll see. If you've been here before, you know Leah, my 10-year-old food critic, and you know Mark, one of my best friends, and they're gonna help us taste today. So let's start with the cheese because I don't think I messed that up. So I've got tortillas here, not the traditional way to eat. That's actually crusty bread, but I forgot to buy crusty bread and I had tortillas in the house. So we're gonna use tortillas and I'm just gonna cut off a little bit of cheese here for each of us and let's give it a quick taste. Cheers. What do you think? Grilled cheese, right? I think the tortilla's overpowering it. I'm gonna try the cheese without the tortilla. All right, now I taste the smoke. It's amazing that it didn't melt through the grate. I know, special cheese meant for grilling. So the next is the tri-tip. So I'm gonna cut it here where the grains change. Cheers. Okay, maybe I didn't screw it up. What do you think, Leah? It's very juicy. Okay, awesome. All right, let's head back over to the grill and turn some stuff over, see how we're doing over there. All right, it's sausage time. So this first one is a traditional Argentinian sausage. So, boy, this looks delicious. All right, cheers. Cheers. Oh, I'm having a second one of those. What do you think, Leah, MTY? All right, let's go get those flanking ribs off the grill and we get to taste those next. That's what I'm looking for. All right, guys, three more things to try. These are all gonna be awesome. I was really surprised when I tried this blood sausage and so was the rest of the team in Miami. So let's try this first. It doesn't look very bloody. Yeah, that's because it looks delicious instead. Cheers. What do you think? You gonna turn into a vampire? Isn't it good? You didn't think it was gonna be good, right? All right, nailed it. All right, let's try the chorizo. Cheers. I don't think you've ever had chorizo, Leah. What do you think? We got a thumbs up. All right, it's time for the flanking ribs. That's worth waiting for. I have here, this is chimichurri. I used chimichurri to baste it, a mild one. There's also a spicy chimichurri that's gonna be in your package if you get it from Meat and Bone. I'm gonna mix it up. There we go. And we're just gonna dip ours in. Leah, it's up to you whether you wanna try it. All right, cheers. Cheers. Okay, it's steak time. We're almost at the end. We got two more pieces. We got those beef ribs that I am really looking forward to. Now, I'm gonna warn you guys. I think I may have overcooked at least one of these steaks. I heard that on the tri-tip. Yeah, all right. So let's see how this New York strip looks. Yeah, so that's medium well. So that's what happens when I try to manage 11 different pieces of food on the grill at the same time. But I bet it's still gonna be tasty. There's somebody new at the table. Did you guys notice? A boy, Teddy. Teddy, you're gonna have some. He is being very good because he knows what's coming, right, Teddy? All right, so Teddy is my son. But they say guys' dogs look like their owners. I don't see it. Do you guys see it? All right, are we ready? Cheers. It's overcooked, but it's still super tasty and juicy. Leah, what do you think? Did I do okay? I love it, it's amazing. Okay, cool. So far, no huge screw-ups. All right, so now we're gonna try this flap steak. Now you can see here the way the grain is running. You always slice against the grain as the last cut. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna cut this into smaller pieces. All right, cheers. Cheers. Here you go, Teddy. I think the same thing. It's overcooked. It's not a medium rare steak. But it's juicy. I mean, here, look at this. Like, there's no shortage of moisture. It's still tender. What do you think, Leah? It's great. All right, you ready to try the one that I have been most excited about? Now, what is this? This is the inside skirt. This is what you typically get if you have carne asada is you'll either have this or you'll have the flank steak. Cheers. Cheers, Teddy. Oh, now that's what I'm talking about. This is perfect. This is really good. We've got these beef ribs are gonna be ready and you guys wait until you see what these look like. I'll be right back. All right, just like other big cuts of meat, we're not cooking this to temperature. We're cooking it to tenderness, even with this style of cooking. So I'm using my Thermapen, but really just to test. Boy, this is going right through this. All right, so these are gonna be ready. Let's test this big dinosaur rib. Oh yeah, we're going right in and out of that. It's like jello. You see that jiggle? All right, we're gonna pull these off. So Leah, remember the whole ribeye on a stick thing that we did? This used to be cut on a ribeye and they cut it off. This is grilled Argentine style instead of smoked. And these are those big dinosaur ribs. And I know you've had these before. These are the ones for meat and bone. And you're not gonna believe this, Mark. I'll tell you right now, these are choice. Get out of here. They're Angus G1 certified choice and it's gonna blow your mind. All right, so let's take a rib and take a bite. Teddy obviously is not in the shot. He ran away with one of the bones, but that's okay. He's a happy dog over there. All right, let's grab beef ribs. Cheers. Oh my goodness. That's better than anything we've eaten so far. That's goodness. What do you think, Leah? It's great. Yeah? All right, I'm not gonna finish it until later because we gotta taste these. So just shut it down. You're all right. All right, let's grab one of these. So this is from the dinosaur rib. Look how juicy these are. All right, this one's for you guys. I'll take this one. Cheers. I don't know how much of this is the quality of the meat from eating bone. I know that's good because I've had it before and how much was this cooking method. I think that's how I'm gonna do beef ribs. I don't know if I'm gonna smoke them anymore. What do you think? They're good. Yeah? They're really juicy. I think this new grill is working out. All right, they told me when I made these cooking videos I had to keep it clean. I don't know if this is really what they meant. I hope you guys had fun. We'll see you next time on Eat More Vegans.