Ropa Vieja
Here's a rather well-known beef dish, originally from the Canary Islands and now popular across the Caribbean and the southern United States, particularly around Miami. The name (ROH-pah vee-AY-hah) means "old clothes" and refers to the way the meat shreds into strings-an unflattering way to describe a terrific meal.
We used skirt steak, rather than the more traditional flank steak, because the skirt steak will end up in shorter threads and be easier to eat. Also, it's a far more flavorful cut.
Serve It Up!
Ropa Vieja is most often served with white rice and a pot of tender, saucy black beans.
Ingredients Explained
Prized for its good flavor, like a steak version of a chuck roast, a skirt steak is from a group of muscles on the underbelly in front of the cow's flank. This long, thin steak is familiar as the original cut used for fajitas; it was also called "Roumanian tenderloin" in old-school delis.
Keeps on Warm: 6 hours
Recipe information
Total Time
9 hours
Yield
Serves 4 to 12
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
1. Stir the tomatoes, onion, celery, peppers, olives, raisins, tomato paste, oregano, cumin, salt, and bay leaf in the slow cooker until the tomato paste dissolves into the mix.
Step 2
2. Nestle the skirt steak(s) into the sauce, cutting large steaks to fit the size of your slow cooker and overlapping them as necessary without folding the steaks over onto themselves. In the end, they should all be submerged in the sauce.
Step 3
3. Cover and cook on low for 9 hours, or until the beef in so tender it can be shredded with a fork. Remove the bay leaf and use two forks to shred the meat completely. Stir in the vinegar before serving.
Recipe notes
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