Anticuchos de Corazón
Anticuchos are skewers of beef heart marinated in ají panca, garlic, cumin and vinegar, then grilled over charcoal. They belong to the street corners of Lima, where the anticucheras set up braziers in the evening and serve them with a boiled potato, a piece of corn and a chilli sauce. The dish traces back to colonial Peru, when enslaved workers were given the offcuts that the Spanish kitchens discarded and applied a spiced-and-skewered technique to the heart, the cut closest in texture to muscle meat. Heart is dense, lean and mild rather than strong-tasting, and the entire difficulty lies in trimming it properly and taking it off the fire early. Marinating time comes on top of the stated time.
Ingredients
- 1 kgbeef heart
- 4 tbspají panca paste
- 6 clovesgarlic
- 5 tbspred wine vinegar
- 2 tspground cumin
- 1 tspdried oregano
- 4 tbspvegetable oil
- 1.5 tspfine sea salt
- 1 tspground black pepper
- 4 piecesyellow potatoes
- 2 piecescorn on the cob
- 12 piecesbamboo skewers
Method
- Trim the heart down to clean dark muscle: cut away the outer fat, the valves and vessels at the top, the inner membrane and every trace of silverskin. Expect to lose around a third of the weight from 1 kg. Anything silvery left behind turns to elastic on the grill and no marinade will soften it.
- Cut the trimmed heart across the grain into 3 cm cubes about 1.5 cm thick, so each piece cooks through in the two or three minutes it spends over the coals.
- Whisk the ají panca paste with the crushed garlic, vinegar, cumin, oregano, half the oil, the salt and the pepper. Turn the cubes through it, cover and refrigerate 4 to 12 hours. Do not go past 12: the vinegar starts to break down the surface and the meat cooks up mealy.
- Soak the bamboo skewers in cold water for 30 minutes so they do not catch fire. Thread three or four cubes onto each, flat faces outward and pieces just touching rather than compressed, since tightly packed meat steams where the pieces meet.
- Boil the potatoes in salted water for 20 to 25 minutes until a knife slides out cleanly, and boil the corn for 15 minutes. Keep both warm. Set the leftover marinade aside and thin it with the remaining oil for basting.
- Grill over hot charcoal with the grate about 10 cm above the coals, 2 to 3 minutes per side, brushing with the thinned marinade each time you turn. The heart is ready when the outside is charred at the edges and the centre is just firm with a rosy tinge, around 60 to 63 °C. A single extra minute takes it to rubber.
- Rest the skewers 2 minutes so the juices settle, then serve with the potato and corn and a chilli sauce on the side. Any basting marinade that touched raw meat must be boiled for 2 minutes before it goes near the plate.
FAQ
Either silverskin and membrane were left on, or the meat went past medium. Trim until the surface is uniformly dark red with nothing pearly on it, cut even cubes, and take the skewers off the fire when the centre is still faintly pink.
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