BUY ONE, GET ONE FREE
HOLIDAY SALE - UP TO 55% OFF
0
days
0
hours
0
min
0
sec
UNLOCK OFFER
BUY ONE, GET ONE FREE
HOLIDAY SALE - UP TO 55% OFF
UNLOCK OFFER
learn
Milanesa with a Simple Salad
Lesson from Francis Mallmann's class

Video time 13 min

Learn how to make one of Argentina’s favorite comfort foods with Italian roots, the milanesa. While the milanesa is traditionally pounded thin and deep fried, Francis prefers a thick cut of tenderloin cooked bleu, or extra rare, on the chapa grill.

Topics include: Searing

On this page

Preview

One of the famous recipes of our restaurants, the milanesa. Obviously, I didn't invent milanesa. Milanesa, is a recipe that comes from Italy. It's a beautiful chateaubriand that is breaded and cooked very slowly and generally eaten with a salad of tomatoes and lettuce. So, I'm going to start out by cleaning the tenderloin. Yeah. So what I do first is I just erase this sort of film. It has all around it. As well as this string on the side, and obviously this we can use for something else, I'm going to get one of my knives. Butcher knife. So, if we go and we think about a tenderloin in French cooking, we would say that from this part here we take the filet mignon, which are little steaks from the middle. We take the tournedos. And from here, this part, it's the chateaubriand, which is the sort of thickest part of the beef, and that's what I'm going to use today for my Milanesa. I'm gonna end up cleaning it up, so when you eat it, you don't have all these chewy parts. Here you go. I don't like aged meat because I find it dry. I mean, it has a bit of delicious taste and it smells nice as well. But what I like about beef is it to be hung for 21 days. And that's what we do in Argentina. So the whole animal will hang at two degrees, the whole carcass with the bones and everything for 21 days. And that's the aging process I really like. And then it's ready for the table. So that's what I have here. Right. So I'm going to start banging it. If you're very elegant, you can use a piece of plastic to do this. And I like it quite thick. So, we have the milanesa now I'm going to do the eggs, some of the eggs of the island of the Cajamarca Cajamarca chickens. Cajamarca chickens is a breed of chickens that come from the natives from Patagonia. They put green and blue eggs. Yes, and they're quite delicious and they're very sturdy for this climate. So we have them running around the house here and in spring and winter, they sort of relax and eat our food. But in this time of the year, they start laying eggs. So, we're very happy about it. Here, I'm going to put a bit of salt into the eggs. I'm going to put a bit of garlic as well. Garlic is important for me because it gives a little contrast to the sweetness of the meat. That's enough. So, this I just added in there. But personally, I don't really want to chop it. I just want to break it up a bit. I want big pieces of it. So, the Milanese is going to take a bath here, and if you close your eyes and dream with me and think you know how beautiful, to be washed here like that you see, that egg with garlic pepper. I'm going to leave it there for a second. Delicious. For the bread crumbs, I brought a bread here to explain how we do this. You see here we have the bread crumbs that I did earlier in the machine. Basically, what you do is you cut off the core of the bread out and you process just the middle, the white part of it until it's quite thin, but a bit coarse still, you see. So it has to be like this. This is the consistency, and this will be used to make the meal NSA to process the bread, use a robot coop. You know that one that breaks things down and makes this beautiful sort of powder of breadcrumbs? Get this tray here. And it has to be generous and comfortable, because obviously when you do this, you're going to probably make ten of them. You have ten guests for lunch or dinner and you have to be comfortable, you know? Look at that, huh? I'm in love. So beautiful, look at it. So first I toss it gently on both sides like that, so it takes the first go of breadcrumbs. Then I pamper it a bit. And this is important because you don't want it very thick. You know, that's what you want to see on this side, maybe a little bit more so it brings all the egg, especially in the corners. And then you see, I take some of it out. OK, so this is ready to go. Butter. I'm going to go with a bit of butter there. Let's see how the temperature is. I don't want it too hot by the color of the iron, and I see that this place here is very hot. That would sort of cook it too fast. I'm going to go to the edge here. See, this is a good place, I think. A little bit more of toilette. Makeup. You see how perfect, that's what I want and then flip it on this side. And then add a bit more of butter here. So it will melt and go under it, you see, as it cooks, it will be drinking the butter. Now we wait for it to cook. Maybe three minutes on the first side and two in the second. I like it. Quite blue. It's perfect. Perfect, perfect. So, I'm going to make a very rough salad for it. This is a lettuce we buy in the island because it's very sturdy and I like to break it with my hands. Never a knife. You see how beautiful that is. Get. You got all the way into the heart. So, I'm going to use that. I'm going to break tomato, as well with my hands. That would be my garnish. Now I'm going to flip this. A beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. In Argentina, there are two national dishes, one is milanesa, but it's not done like this. It's thinner and the breadcrumbs are dry. Me using the very fresh ones that I like more. Even sometimes we do it with brioche, but it's a national dish as well as potato and yorkies. That's the other national dish. So, I'm going to start adding a bit of, first of all, a vinegar, a red wine vinegar so it drinks it. First, you put the vinegar because the oil is thicker and it protects the tomato and lettuce. It blocks it. And the vinegar is more watery and that goes in first. The olive oil? That's perfect. And now you add, some sea salt and some pepper. Very important to break everything with your hands. The knife is more related to a mathematician, I like it a bit untidy. I like to show who they are. If you would cut this lettuce in slices, you wouldn't understand how beautiful that heart is. It looks like like a piece of Picasso. I really like it. So I think this will be cooked to my like, obviously, you can cook it longer if you want. I like it very, very raw. Do I'm gonna make a little cut into it here. So, you can see how I like to eat it. It's quite bleu. I cooked it for two, three minutes on the first side and and two in the second five minutes, I would say that you cook it for eight minutes. So, you do five on the first side, slowly and then three minutes on the second side. Then it will be slightly rosy pink. But I like it like that.

About the Instructor

Francis Mallmann, the pioneer of open-fire cooking, is South America’s most famous chef and is known for his rustic open-fire cooking style in wild and remote locations. Join the James Beard award-winning author and Chef’s Table star as he brings you on a journey into his kitchen in the Patagonian wild where he teaches you how to master the grill and his Argentine-style barbecue.