Jackie and I invited our fellowship group to come to the house on Saturday night to enjoy some Brazilian-style barbecue with us.  We have learned to prepare this dish from Dr. Flavio Riberio, one of our former grad students in the Department of Animal Science who is from Brazil and who just loves to prepare these wonderful dishes.  Flavio has been coming to the UGST 181 Texas Barbecue class to demonstrate Brazilian barbecue for our students, and his trip and the food he prepares has become the event of the semester.

I have replicated the cinder-block pit in our backyard (to go with our pig pit), and I purchased some Brazilian skewers to hold the meat during cooking.  Preparing the meat for cooking is rather simple:  just use coarse sea salt and salt the meat immediately before cooking and after slicing the cooked portions off and before putting the piece back onto the pit.  It is that simple and it is that good!

I cooked two products:  chuck short ribs and sirloin flap.  I did not have any pichanha, the typical cut used for Brazilian-style barbecuing, but this is not our last go-round with this fun way to cook and serve meat.  Flavio also showed us how to prepare the dipping salsa (I am not sure how to best describe this), which is diced green bell peppers, onions, and tomatoes placed a in bowl with olive oil and a some apple cider vinegar and a little salt.  Slices of the cooked beef are dredged through this salsa so that the oil and vegetable mixture gets on the meat and you eat it immediately.  It is simply wonderful.

I am enclosing photos of the products during cooking so you can see how they changed throughout the evening.  I look forward to many more Brazilian events with our family, friends, and students.