Carne de Sol (Lightly Salted, Air-Dried Beef)

Name: Carne de Sol (Lightly Salted, Air-Dried Beef)
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Brazilian
Ingredients: 1 kg beef topside or silverside; 20 g coarse salt; 500 g cassava (macaxeira); 1 onion; 2 tbsp butter; 2 tbsp neutral oil

Beef from northeastern Brazil, cut into thick slabs, salted lightly and dried briefly under cover where the air moves. The name means "sun meat", but it is kept out of the sun. Only the outside dries; the inside stays moist, so it goes straight to the grill or the pan without soaking.

Ingredients

4servings

Meat
beef topside or silverside · one piece1 kg
coarse salt · 2% of the meat weight20 g
To serve
cassava (macaxeira) · or potatoes500 g
onion · thickly sliced1
butter · clarified butter (manteiga de garrafa) in Brazil2 tbsp
neutral oil2 tbsp

Steps

Open the beef out with cuts along the grain into a wide sheet about 3cm thick. In Brazil this is the "blanket".
Rub the salt evenly over both sides. A rubbing is enough; the meat is not buried in salt (salt and seasoning).
Set it on a rack over a tray and dry it uncovered in the fridge for one to two days, turning it once. It is ready when the outside has dried to a deep red and no longer feels tacky.
Peel the cassava, boil it until tender, drain it and fry it in oil until crisp outside.
⏲ 25 min
Cut the meat into 4cm pieces. Do not rinse or soak it.
Oil a hot pan or grill and sear the pieces, turning them, until dark outside and still pink inside, 6-8 minutes (cooking meat and resting).
⏲ 7 min
Take the meat out and soften the onion in the butter in the same pan.
⏲ 4 min
Serve the meat with the cassava and the onion on top.

Variations

With coalho cheese. Serve with grilled slabs of firm coalho cheese, as in the photograph on this page.
Baked with cream. The cut meat baked in the oven with cream.
Paçoca. Cooked meat pounded in a mortar with cassava flour into a savoury crumb.

Tips

Despite the name, it is not dried in the sun. Shade and moving air do the drying.
Salt it with a rubbing only. More salt makes a different meat.
Do not dry it through. Stop once the outside is dry.
Cook it straight away, without soaking.

More detail and the reasons why (2)

The same salt, a different depth. Yukpo slices thin and dries all the way through, to be eaten as it is. Charque, the heavily salted dried beef, dries hard and has to be soaked and boiled before it can be used, as majadito does. Carne de sol takes little salt and a short drying, so only the outside dries and the inside stays as moist as fresh meat. That is why it goes straight to the grill.
At home the fridge is the wind. The hot, dry wind of the Brazilian northeast dries the surface in hours; at home, leaving the meat uncovered in the fridge lets cold, dry air do the same job safely.