Certified Piedmontese Beef is expanding their offerings and recently started offering the Picanha Sirloin Roast, which is the quintessential meat served at high end Brazilian steak houses. I was chatting with Joe at CPB one day while placing an order and he mentioned these roasts and sang the accolades about them so I added one to my order. A couple days later he emailed me saying that CPB and Sunterra Outdoor Products (the company I got my Santa Maria frill from) were doing a joint promotion and asked if I'd be willing to cook the Picanha roast on the SM grill, preferably with the rotisserie, take pics, and share them with him for the promotion. Sure...I've shared a lot of my threads featuring CPB with him so this was no different. A few emails later and after considerable discussion this turned into a full blown Brazilian feast. A bit of a daunting task being that it's WAY outside of my wheelhouse but I figured I'd give it a go and see what happens. Tons of research and many hours or reading later, I finally decided on the menu:
Appetizer #1
Ensalada de Palmas
(Heart of palm salad with an amazing tropical homemade dressing)
Appetizer #2
Albondiga y de Cerdo con Salsa de Queso
(Pork meatballs with cheesy cream sauce...rough translation. They were served over a bed of garlic and herb couscous)
Main course:
Picanha Asado a la Parrilla con chimichurri
(Grilled Picanha roast with chimichurri)
Tomates y Cebollas Asados
(Roasted tomatoes and onions. I used pearl onions and cherry tomatoes)
Pao de Queijo
(Brazilian cheese bread)
Dessert:
Pudim de Leite
(Brazilian flan)
Are y'all impressed with all the glowing verbiage? Well don't be. I know one word of Spanish: cerveza. The rest I had to use Google to translate for me. I did not take progress pics of everything because it would have made for about 400 pics and taken me three days to post being that everything was homemade, down to and including the caramel sauce for the flan and the dressing for the salad.
The roast. Sliced the fat cap and dry brined for two days with Pink Himalayan Sea Salt and black pepper
I started prepping and getting things ready on Friday which included making the flan. Ready to go into the oven.
While the flan was baking I chopped up the pork, seasoned it, and mixed it up for the meatballs. This went into the fridge till the next day
Flan finished baking. Let cool then put in the fridge overnight
Saturday: start with the chimichurri. Never made it before and never eaten it before. Wanted to get it done first so if it was a disaster I had time to improvise
Pearl onions marinating in EVOO, garlic, and black pepper
The dough made for the cheese bread and formed into balls as tradition requires...or so I'm told. Ready to go into the oven.
Cheese bread all done
Meatballs all formed up and ready to cook
Getting the tomatoes and onions ready to go on the grill later. Huge shout out to
Bearcarver
for the zig zag skewers!!
Meatballs done. They were pretty lean and made a mess of the skillet. Oh well...Tracy does the dishes
My favorite part of the meal!!
Getting the roast ready to go on the grill
And we're off!!
The flan has chilled overnight and ready to remove from the pan. A lot of the caramel stuck to the bottom of the pan so I scraped it out and drizzled it around and on top.
Getting the cheesy cream sauce going for the meatballs
Progress pic of the roast
Tracy got the dining room all set up pretty
Last thing was to make the salad. Wanted to keep it as fresh as possible
Time to start eating. The first course was the heart of palm salad
Second course was the pork meatballs with the cheese sauce and couscous
Just before serving the meatballs I put the tomato and onion skewers on the grill
Roast all done
I put the CI pan in the oven at 125 for a while to put the sliced roast on. That would keep it warm without cooking it any more
Skewers all done
Main course served
Dessert. The flan served with Tepache, which is a fermented pineapple cocktail that I made a couple weeks ago in the same manner as making beer
Well folks, that's it....finally. This meal was a HUGE amount of work but I'll say without reservation is was the best meal I think I've ever put together. Tracy felt the same way, right up to the point she had to start washing dishes
Every aspect of it came out fantastic. I did a trial run earlier in the week with the flan and the cheese bread just to work out any kinks and I'm glad I did. The end result was far better than the first attempts of either. Hats off to CPB tough for offering another spectacular cut of meat. Those will be a staple in the freezer along with a couple others I keep on hand. Several of the things I made for this one will become part of our regular rotation, especially the heart of palm salad and the dressing, which I stole from either Joe (
xray
) or Jeff (
jcam222
). Sorry guys, can't remember which of you, maybe both, posted this but it's been bookmarked for a while and finally got around to making. Need to tag one more person. Our good friend John (
chilerelleno
) for some reason has a particular interest in this meal and I'd like to make sure he sees it. Well, this one is finally a wrap. Now back to your regularly scheduled program....
Be safe out there y'all!!
Robert
Appetizer #1
Ensalada de Palmas
(Heart of palm salad with an amazing tropical homemade dressing)
Appetizer #2
Albondiga y de Cerdo con Salsa de Queso
(Pork meatballs with cheesy cream sauce...rough translation. They were served over a bed of garlic and herb couscous)
Main course:
Picanha Asado a la Parrilla con chimichurri
(Grilled Picanha roast with chimichurri)
Tomates y Cebollas Asados
(Roasted tomatoes and onions. I used pearl onions and cherry tomatoes)
Pao de Queijo
(Brazilian cheese bread)
Dessert:
Pudim de Leite
(Brazilian flan)
Are y'all impressed with all the glowing verbiage? Well don't be. I know one word of Spanish: cerveza. The rest I had to use Google to translate for me. I did not take progress pics of everything because it would have made for about 400 pics and taken me three days to post being that everything was homemade, down to and including the caramel sauce for the flan and the dressing for the salad.
The roast. Sliced the fat cap and dry brined for two days with Pink Himalayan Sea Salt and black pepper
I started prepping and getting things ready on Friday which included making the flan. Ready to go into the oven.
While the flan was baking I chopped up the pork, seasoned it, and mixed it up for the meatballs. This went into the fridge till the next day
Flan finished baking. Let cool then put in the fridge overnight
Saturday: start with the chimichurri. Never made it before and never eaten it before. Wanted to get it done first so if it was a disaster I had time to improvise
Pearl onions marinating in EVOO, garlic, and black pepper
The dough made for the cheese bread and formed into balls as tradition requires...or so I'm told. Ready to go into the oven.
Cheese bread all done
Meatballs all formed up and ready to cook
Getting the tomatoes and onions ready to go on the grill later. Huge shout out to

Meatballs done. They were pretty lean and made a mess of the skillet. Oh well...Tracy does the dishes
My favorite part of the meal!!
Getting the roast ready to go on the grill
And we're off!!
The flan has chilled overnight and ready to remove from the pan. A lot of the caramel stuck to the bottom of the pan so I scraped it out and drizzled it around and on top.
Getting the cheesy cream sauce going for the meatballs
Progress pic of the roast
Tracy got the dining room all set up pretty
Last thing was to make the salad. Wanted to keep it as fresh as possible
Time to start eating. The first course was the heart of palm salad
Second course was the pork meatballs with the cheese sauce and couscous
Just before serving the meatballs I put the tomato and onion skewers on the grill
Roast all done
I put the CI pan in the oven at 125 for a while to put the sliced roast on. That would keep it warm without cooking it any more
Skewers all done
Main course served
Dessert. The flan served with Tepache, which is a fermented pineapple cocktail that I made a couple weeks ago in the same manner as making beer
Well folks, that's it....finally. This meal was a HUGE amount of work but I'll say without reservation is was the best meal I think I've ever put together. Tracy felt the same way, right up to the point she had to start washing dishes



Be safe out there y'all!!
Robert
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