Picanha Invertida (Inverted Picanha) -Fernando Petri

Picanha Invertida (Inverted Picanha)

by Fernando Petri

Hi everyone!

Today I would like to share with you a famous recipe from my home country, Brazil. This special dish is famous on central and south regions of my country. I decided to introduce you this recipe because it is quite simple to prepare, however it comes with a explosion of flavor!

One characteristic that makes this dish unique is that you can diversify the ingredients to fill it! For this time I chose to fill the meat with onions and garlic cream.

Ingredients

1 peace of Picanha (approximately 1kg)

1 or 2 onions

2 garlic cloves (or 4 small)

1 cup of natural yogurt

Vegetable oil

Red pepper

Finely ground salt

Coarsely ground salt

Roasting bag

Matchsticks

Thread

Directions

Using a knife that is long enough to go through the entire peace of picanha, make a cut in the middle of the meat, leaving around 1 inch on both side of it. The cut goes almost through the bottom of the meat. Leave 1 inch of intact meat at the bottom as well.

After this process your picanha might be looking like a bag.

With your hands turn the “bag” inside out, which means that the fat is going to end inside the “bag”. (Be careful not to rip the meat)

Once it is inverted put the coarsely ground salt around the meat and leave it.

While the meat gets salty prepare the garlic cream.

In a liquefier put the garlic cloves, the yogurt, finely ground salt and pepper to taste. Start mixing and slowly add the oil. At the beginning you will notice that the texture is going to be the same as the yogurt.

Keep mixing and slowly adding the oil until you notice that the texture will become similar to a mayonnaise. Once you get the mayo texture stop.

Slice the onions in big pieces.

Take off the extra salt from the meat.

Put the some onions inside the meat.

Put a little of the garlic cream.

Keep adding the onions and the cream until the meat is full (Save some space to close the meat).

With some matchsticks and thread close the meat.

Put it in a roasting bag, then put in a broiler and put in a preheated oven at 375 F (190 C).

After 40 - 45 min, open the bag in order to brown the meat (be careful not to be burned by the steam).

Roast for 15 – 20 more min (you can turn over the meat in order to get a better result of brown in both sides).

Slice it in a place where it is possible to save the sauce released by the meat and serve it with rice and some salad.