Nikkei Beef Picanha with Yuzu, Soy and Chilli Dressing - A Recipe & Competition for Your Chance to Win a Weber BBQ in Collaboration with Irish Beef

Nikkei cooking is a style of Japanese cuisine created by Japanese migrants in different places around the world with significant diasporas – South America is one of these regions, especially in Brazil and Peru.

When my Japanese family migrated to Brazil with millions of others, they yearned to eat the food they were accustomed to, but they lacked familiar ingredients in their new adopted home – so Nikkei cuisine was born, out of necessity, with Japanese inspired dishes being created at home, using the local ingredients they could find at the time.

One of these ingredients was beef picanha - but what exactly is it? 

The picanha beef cut comes from the cap lying above the top sirloin and rump areas; it is a triangular cut and just like the British rump, it has a beautiful layer of fat. It is not a muscle that moves much during the animal’s life, and so it remains tender. The picanha’s thick blanket of fat lends the meat flavour and succulence while protecting it from human error that may occur during grilling.  And because it is little known in Europe, picanha is still relatively cheap.

Picanha symbolizes the authentic Brazilian churrasco where it is grilled encased in a thick layer of rock salt and nothing else. Growing up in my Nikkei home in São Paulo, we tended to use rather less rock salt, but basted the meat in a mixture of soy sauce, lime, garlic and olive oil during grilling.

I am thrilled to discover excellent quality Irish picanha available in the UK, and share this Nikkei Beef Picanha recipe with you so you will not need to travel far to taste picanha. This is a favourite recipe of mine and one I serve often for friends and at my own #NikkkeiSupperClub. As well as being super easy to prepare, it is perfect for the Summer months and once you have tried picanha, I think you will be hooked!

This recipe was created in collaboration with Irish Beef. To learn more about Irish Beef and discover a number of mouth-watering recipes using Irish beef, visit their website here.

For a chance to win a Weber Barbecue and try this recipe out in your own garden, please enter the 'Summer Beef Encounters' competition in collaboration with Irish Beef by clicking here and vote for my Nikkei Beef Picanha recipe, please! Good luck!


Nikkei Beef Picanha 
with Yuzu, Soy and Chilli Dressing

Ingredients (serves 8):

• 1.3kg Irish beef picanha, whole piece
• 50g rock sea salt (do not use table or cooking salt or flakes)
• 120ml soy sauce
• 60ml extra-virgin olive oil
• 60ml yuzu juice (substitute with lime or lemon)
• 6 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 long red chilli, de-seeded and finely diced (keep ½ for decoration)

• Edible flowers like wild garlic, to decorate
• Micro coriander, to decorate
• ½ long red chilli, de-seeded and finely diced, to decorate (see above)

Method:

1. Score the fatty blanket on the picanha by making criss-cross cuts into the thick layer of fat covering one side. Cut the piece of picanha into 4 to 5 thick pieces of about 250g to 300g each about 5cm thick, keeping the fat covering the upper surface of each steak. 

2. Place the steaks on a tray and cover them thoroughly in the rock sea salt, this will help to seal in the juices of the meat. Table or cooking salt is too fine and more of it will be needed to do the same job resulting in a very salty barbecued picanha, so do stick to rock salt for this recipe. In addition, rock salt does not penetrate nearly as much as finer salts, giving a delicious and lightly salty crust to the meat. If your salt tolerance is low, you may prefer not to salt the beef and only use the dressing to season it as it is served.

3. Now make the soy & yuzu or lime dressing by mixing together the soy sauce, olive oil, yuzu or lime juice, crushed garlic cloves and ½ of diced red chilli - ½ of this dressing will be used for basting the meat while on the grill and the other ½ will be used as a dipping sauce to serve with the slices of beef.

4. BBQ Method - Get your barbecue hot and ready for the picanha, and generously brush the grill plates with oil. Grill the picanha pieces fat-side up for a few minutes until a little juice leaks out of the steaks. Turn the steaks onto their sides to grill for a few minutes more on each side.  Using a brush, baste the meat with the reserved ½ of soy and yuzu lime dressing every time your turn the steaks. Finally grill fat-side down, moving the steaks away from the hottest part of the fire to avoid over-cooking and to reduce the chance of the fire flaring up from the dripping fat. Grill to your desired doneness, it should take anything from 15 to 25 minutes depending on the thickness of the steaks and how fierce the fire in your barbecue is.  I use the ‘finger poke method’ to know when the meat is done - I like my picanha rather pink, so the meat should feel bouncy but firm cooked for about 15 to 20 minutes in total. Alternatively, you can take one steak out of the grill and cut a small piece of it from its thickest part to check for doneness.

5. Kitchen Grill Method - If you don’t have a barbecue you can still cook the picanha under a hot grill in your kitchen. Place the steaks over a rack within a roasting tin, this is important as the picanha’s fat will drip into it and not in your oven. Grill the steaks for 7 minutes flesh side up, then turn them over and grill fat side up, preferably on a lower rack or at the bottom of the oven, for another 8 to 12 minutes, basting the beef with the reserved ½ of soy and yuzu lime dressing for 2 minutes before the end of cooking time. If using the kitchen grill, a meat thermometer read is more accurate than on the barbecue – the internal temperature of the meat should be 60°C for rare, 63°C for medium rare, 71°C for medium and 77°C for well-done. If you don’t have a meat thermometer, use the finger poke method described above.

6. Let the picanha rest for 5 minutes before serving. Brush off the excess salt. The meat should be sliced thinly and served with the reserved soy and yuzu/lime dressing. In this way, guests can choose the slices they want, some will prefer more rare, others more well-done so everyone is happy!

Your Favourite #IrishGrassFedBeef Dish Revealed! (In Collaboration with Grasstronomy/Irish Beef)

The good people at Grasstronomy (Irish Beef) got in touch asking me to put together The London Foodie readers’ favourite beef dishes, the ones you love cooking at home. I love a good steak, but it was the words “Irish Grass Fed Beef” that really caught my imagination. So how could I resist?

It was tough choosing a favourite among the mouth-watering replies from Twitter, Instagram and Facebook (thank you folks for participating!), but in the end I chose an irresistible Ox Cheek Mac n' Cheese! This heart warming and luxurious version features slow-braised Irish ox cheeks cooked in red wine and spices, topped with macaroni cheese flavoured with mature Parmesan and fresh black truffles. Perfect for the colder months, this is comfort food at its best!

So why all the fuss about Irish grass fed beef? Ireland is blessed among other things with rain, all year round, and this makes for terrific pasture and a rich soil. Grass fed cattle are also thought to be leaner as they work for their food. And it’s reputedly this sweet grass of Ireland that makes some of the most luscious, tender beef in the world – tried and tested, right in my kitchen.

If you would like to learn more about Irish grass fed beef, visit the their website here or on Facebook here. Better still, why don’t you try Irish grass fed beef for yourself? Next time you visit your supermarket or local butcher, look out for Irish beef and try out the recipe below, I look forward to hearing what you think!

Slow-Braised Ox Cheeks in Red Wine & Spices, 

Macaroni Cheese with Mature Parmesan 
and Black Truffles

(Recipe by Luiz Hara)

Ingredients (for 4 people):

For the Ox Cheeks:

• 1kg ox cheeks
• 1 celery stick, diced into 1cm cubes
• 1 onion, diced into 1cm cubes
• 1 carrot, diced into 1cm cubes
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 litre full bodied red wine
• Mixed spices - 1 stick cinnamon, 1 star anise. 1-2 cloves and 10 black peppercorns
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• Pinch of Malden salt
• Freshly ground pepper
• 25g unsalted butter

For the Macaroni Cheese:

• 175g mature cheddar
• 50g Gruyere
• 50g mature Parmesan
• 50g white bread, crusts cut off
• 300g good-quality macaroni
• 350ml single cream
• 350ml full fat milk
• 50g unsalted butter
• 50g plain flour
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 small fresh black truffle, thinly sliced (optional)
• 2 tbsp good quality truffle oil 

Method:

For the Ox Cheeks:

Remove any gristle or nerves from the ox cheeks, cut them up into 5cm pieces, season with salt and pepper, and keep aside until needed.

Peel and wash the carrot, onion and celery and dice them into 1cm cubes. Finely chop 2 garlic cloves.

Pour the red wine into a saucepan, bring to the boil to burn off the alcohol, add the mixed spices - 1 small stick cinnamon, 1 star anise. 1-2 cloves and 10 black peppercorns and reduce by 1/3.

Heat a casserole with the olive oil on a high heat, brown the ox cheeks on all sides, remove the pieces from the casserole when done.

Lower the heat, add 25g butter into the casserole, let it foam (but not burn), then add the diced vegetables and garlic. Sweat the vegetables until lightly coloured for about 3-5 minutes.

Turn up the heat, add a few tablespoons of the spiced red wine and deglaze the pan by scraping the juices from the bottom of the casserole with a spatula.

Return the browned ox cheeks back into the casserole and cover with the remaining spiced wine so that the meat is covered. Bring gently to the boil, cover and place it in a fan-heated oven for 6 hours at 180°C, turning the meat occasionally during cooking. Alternatively, use a pressure cooker at high pressure for 2 hours.

Once cooked and very tender, remove the beef with a slotted spoon and place it on a deep tray (if using a pressure cooker, ensure to release all pressure before attempting to open the pressure cooker). Shred the beef. Pass the jus through a fine strainer into a clean pan, and reduce it slowly until a thick and smooth sauce is achieved. Add the sauce to the shredded ox cheeks, mix well and check for seasoning. Set aside until needed.

For the Macaroni Cheese:

Finely grate all cheeses, keeping them separate. Tear the bread into pieces and whizz in a food processor to coarse crumbs. Mix 25g cheddar and 25g Parmesan into the breadcrumbs.  
Toss the rest of the cheese together in a bowl and set aside. Pre-heat the oven to 190°C.

In a large pan of salted boiling water, add the macaroni cheese and cook al dente according to package instructions (roughly about 8 minutes), stir occasionally to avoid them sticking together. While this is cooking, start the sauce.

Warm the milk and single cream in a small pan.

In a separate pan (big enough to take the macaroni as well), melt the butter in a pan, then stir in the flour. Cook for 1 minute, stirring, then take off the heat. Pour in 1/3 of the warmed milk and cream mixture and beat well with a wooden spoon until smooth – it will be quite thick at this stage. Add another 1/3 – it may go a bit lumpy, but keep beating well and it will go smooth again. Pour in the final 1/3 and keep beating until smooth, a balloon whisk can also help you with this step.

When the macaroni is done, tip it into a colander and drain.

Put the pan with the roux mixture (butter, flour, milk and single cream) back on the heat and cook, stirring, until thickened and smooth. Lower the heat and simmer for about 4 minutes until glossy, stirring every now and then. Remove from the heat and stir in the cheese and mustard, mix well. The consistency of the sauce should be rather thick. Check for seasoning and adjust if required.

Gently stir the macaroni into the sauce and stir to coat completely. There should be enough sauce to coat the macaroni thickly and liberally.

Assembling the Final Dish:

Lightly reheat the shredded ox cheeks and cooking juices and place them in a casserole (large enough to take in the macaroni cheese, and one in which the final dish will be presented at the table).

Gently top with macaroni cheese mixture, scatter over the cheesy crumbs over the top and heat through in the oven for about 12 minutes or until beginning to bubble around the edges. Grill for 3-5 minutes to brown the crumbs to a light golden colour.

Remove from the oven, drizzle 2 tbsp of good quality truffle oil, let it rest for 2 minutes, then scatter the fine slices of fresh truffle over the dish and serve immediately.