BBQ with Spanish Extra Virgin Olive Oil: Picanha at its Best

BBQ with Spanish Extra Virgin Olive Oil: Picanha at its Best

After a wet spring, summer is finally in full swing in the Netherlands. There is no better time to barbecue with friends and/or family, where extra virgin olive oil of course it cannot be missed!

I often get asked how olive oil can be used during a barbecue, so in this blog I want to give some examples of how you can use extra virgin olive oil, both in baking and for side dishes.

Jersey Picanha

In preparation I went to ONS Biologische Slager for a nice piece BBQ meat. I didn't have to look long, because I saw a Picanha from a Jersey cow of about 1.2 kg. The Jersey cattle breed originally comes from the English island of Jersey and is known for its high quality meat with beautiful marbling, slightly darker in colour than Dutch beef.

Picanha is the tail piece of the cow and is very popular in Portugal and Brazil, among other places. The tail piece is the triangular part at the end of the cow's flat buttock. Because the Picanha is a large part fat contains, which we have also left in this recipe, there is not a lot olive oil necessary.

I am a big fan of sous vide cooking because of the ease and consistent results. In the preparation of the BBQ I also prepared the Picanha in the sous-vide to achieve the best result. During grilling we only rubbed the meat part with olive oil extra virgin olive oil .

For this dish you need for 3 to 4 people:

• Picanha from 1kg to 1.2kg
• Olive oil Olive oil for frying. Of course my friends have the best olive oil in the house; a 5 liter can of Oro de Genave with which you can fill your own bottle but the small bottle olive oil  Oro de Genave can also be used.

Preparation:

1. For the best result I sprinkled the Picanha with salt a day in advance (about 12 hours) to get an osmosis effect. Because the salt soaks into the meat, moisture is extracted, which will make the meat more tender.
2. Early in the morning I started the sous-vide preparation. The meat was of course already well salted, so I sprinkled the meat with pepper. Then I put the meat in a vacuum bag and vacuumed it.
3. Online I came across a preparation method where the temperature was prepared at 39.5 degrees for the first hour, then at 49.5 for one hour and then at 53 degrees for six hours. This would achieve a warm aging effect and activate enzymes that would ensure a tender piece of meat. That worked out very well in the end!
4. After preparing the sous-vide, I let the meat cool down and then took it to friends.
5. Once arrived the BBQ already well prepared and taken care of in part on the BBQ where there was coal and a part without, so that indirect heating can be provided later.
6. Opened the sous-vide bags, inserted a core thermometer into the Picanha and then smeared the meat part of the Picanha with biological extra virgin olive oil Oro de Genave and started to put the meat on the fat part on the grill. After the fat part got a nice brown grill color we grilled the meat part.

1. After searing the Picanha, we placed the meat above the part without coals and slowly waited until the core temperature was around 54 degrees.
2. When the core temperature was 54 degrees we removed the meat from the BBQ pulled and let rest for about 10 minutes under aluminum foil. Secretly cut off a piece too early, but quickly came to the conclusion that it is really worth the wait.
3. After 10 minutes you can cut the meat and enjoy!

As a side dish we had homemade chimichurri, for which I still have to ask for the recipe, but in any case it contained biological olive oil Oro de Geneve through.

You can also do something spanish olive oil Pour Verde Segura over the meat to get a peppery taste. A fresh salad as a side dish also goes well with this dish and summer temperatures, Verde Segura can also go well with that. Enough possibilities!