Lime Marinated Crispy Beef (Vaca Frita)

For Christmas dinner this year I chose a Cuban theme for the menu and Vaca Frita was the main dish. Vaca Frita is, simply put, lime-marinated crispy beef.

The Cubans would probably serve this over white rice, and you can certainly do that, depending on your tolerance for carbohydrates. For a purely Paleo meal, you can always substitute with cauliflower rice.

Plan Ahead

This is a good recipe to plan ahead, so you can let the meat sit in the marinade. As the instructions say, you can let it sit for as little as thirty minutes, but the longer it sits, the more the meat will absorb the flavors of the marinade. I usually recommend marinating meat for at least a couple hours.

Downsides to Crisping Meat

Any time we crisp meat, we create heterocyclic amines (HCAs) and advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs). HCAs have shown some carcinogenic effects, while AGEs can increase insulin resistance and deplete our antioxidant stores.

The good news is that, by marinating the meat before crisping it up, we can largely prevent HCAs and AGEs from forming (source). As is so often the case, we can make our food more delicious while simultaneously making it healthier.

Yield: 4-6 Servings

Ingredients

2 yellow onions
1 1/2lbs grass-fed flank steak, cut into 4 pieces
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup lime juice
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse ground sea salt
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper

Directions

Peel and cut one onion in half and slice the other.
Place the beef, onion halves and bay leaf in a 5-quart deep saucepan with enough water to cover the ingredients. Place over medium high heat, bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low to simmer and cook for 20 minutes.
Remove the pan from the heat and allow everything to cool. Discard the bay leaf and drain the beef & onion mixture, save the broth to drink or to use at a later time.
When cool enough to handle, shred the beef by hand, pulling apart its fibers with your fingers.
Add minced garlic and 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt to a large mixing bowl and mash with the back end of a large spoon to form a paste. Add the shredded beef, sliced onions, lime juice and olive oil to the bowl. Toss to combine. Set aside the bowl to marinate for at least 30 minutes or up to a couple hours. Add the remaining sea salt and black pepper and toss to combine.
Heat a 10.25-inch cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. Working in batches, add just enough beef to the skillet to fill the bottom, without overcrowding. Sear for 3-4 minutes, undisturbed, to achieve a crisp texture. Toss the beef and allow it to cook another 2-4 minutes. Transfer cooked beef to a covered baking dish. You can keep it warm in a 250°F oven as you continue to repeat this step, until all the beef is cooked.
Serve with white or cauliflower rice.
Enjoy! :)

Lime Marinated Crispy Beef (Vaca Frita)

Plan Ahead

Downsides to Crisping Meat