This is the gaúcho fire. Beef gets coarse salt (sal grosso) only, about 10 to 15 g per kilo, just before it goes on. Knock the extra off after. Picanha on this table is salt only, fat cap on. No rub, no marinade on beef, no barbecue sauce. Meat is served in rounds over embers, not through flames.
Start on this table: how to grill picanha on a kettle grill, two-zone fire, and farofa and vinagrete.
Kit: What to buy.
What the fire is
In the countryside the old form is fogo de chão: meat on iron stakes around a wood fire, turned by hand. At home that is a churrasqueira or a kettle grill with two zones. You control the heat by how far the meat sits from the embers: most beef at 30–40 cm (12–16 in), costela at 40–50 cm (16–20 in). Beef plate ribs (costela) are a long southern cook over open fire. Young chicken (galeto) is from Italian families around Caxias do Sul: a Cornish hen or small air-chilled bird on a spit, with polenta.
What belongs on this table
Top sirloin cap (picanha), sirloin flap (fraldinha), top sirloin roast (alcatra), beef plate ribs (costela), fresh garlic pork sausage (linguiça toscana), garlic bread (pão de alho), pão com picanha. Farofa and vinagrete are on Across Brazil. Chimarrão sits on this table. Juice, guaraná, water, and cafezinho sit on the table.
Fire and salt
- How much meat to buy
- Coarse salt (sal grosso) vs kosher salt
- Charcoal vs gas
- What a Brazilian churrasco actually uses
- Types of Brazilian barbecue grills (churrasqueiras)
- Two-zone fire on a kettle grill
- How far picanha sits from the charcoal
- Fogo de chão (embers on the ground)
- Common churrasco mistakes
Beef
- How to grill picanha on a kettle grill
- Picanha, salt only (seasoning only)
- How to cook fraldinha
- Fraldinha, salt only (seasoning only)
- Costela on the grill
- Costela, salt only (seasoning only)
- Alcatra, salt only (seasoning only)
- Maminha with garlic and oil (seasoning only)
- Maminha with garlic butter (seasoning only)
- Alcatra with mustard and garlic (seasoning only)
- Cuts beyond picanha
- Zebu hump (cupim)
- Pão com picanha
Chicken, sausage, extra meat
- Young chicken over charcoal (galeto na brasa)
- How to grill young chicken (galeto)
- What to serve with young chicken (galeto)
- Galeto sage-garlic paste
- Galeto white wine and sage
- Galeto beer
- Galeto garlic and lime
- Galeto butter on the spit
- Galeto brine, then sage
- Linguiça toscana on the grill
- Homemade linguiça toscana
- Chicken hearts
- Chicken gizzards (boiled, then grilled)
- Chicken wings
- Lamb on a Brazilian fire
- Lamb chops on the fire
- Pork picanha
- Pork loin
- Pork ribs
Sides and after
- Pão de alho
- Grilled polenta (polenta grelhada)
- Potato salad (maionese de batata)
- Bitter chicory salad with bacon (radicci ao bacon)
- Arroz carreteiro
- Sagu de vinho
- Torresmo
- Pururuca
More posts are under the Sul tag.