Lomo al Trapo: Beef in Towel on the Kamado

I came across this write up from Serious Eats on facebook the other day and I knew I had to try it.  This is a fancy technique for cooking beef that hails from Colombia.  It is too ridiculously easy for you not to try.

To make this little bit of wonderful you need:

A charcoal grill

A Chateaubriand

Cotton Twine

About 2 cups of kosher salt

A few sprigs of herbs

1 cotton towel

 

First thing was to get all of my materials lined up, so I ordered towels from Amazon in the same number package that the author recommended.  A week later (prime takes a week in Hawaii) I was in business!

I wasn’t able to get a Chateaubriand, so I just got a regular tenderloin, which was a bit bigger than the author used on his example.  I took the racks out of my kamado and fired up some lump charcoal, I let it preheat while I prepared the meat.  I laid the towel out and spread a generous portion of kosher salt with a few sprigs of oregano.  Then I placed the meat in the center and wrapped the towel like a burrito around the meat.  I then used a cotton twine to tie off my bundle so it would stay intact on the coals.

My dome thermometer was reading approximately 400 degrees, when I placed the bundle directly on the coals.

I set a timer for 10 minutes.  After 10 minutes, I used a pair of metal tongs to turn the meat, the towel proved to be too brittle and tore when I did this. I tried to patch the hole the best I could and I gave the meat another 10 minutes before pulling it off the coals.  I opened all the vents on the kamado when I flipped the meat and the dome temp was approximately 600 degrees when I pulled the meat off.

The bundle was smoking like crazy when I pulled it off the coals.  I didn’t want to set off any smoked detectors, so I removed the crust before bringing the meat inside.

The meat had a wonderful flavor and even though my wife was a bit suspicious of the whole thing, she raved about the results.  We served it with a delightful chimichurri sauce I had prepared a couple days in advance.  The meat was very rare though.  I think with the larger cut of meat I should have cooked at 600 degrees the whole time and kept it on 12 minutes each side.  The meat had great flavor, a result of bits of smokiness and saltiness that coming bursting through as you work your way through the meat.   This recipe is definitely a keeper and probably only required about 30 minutes of prep/cooking total.  I will do this the next time we host guests that we want to impress!  If you have any questions or comments please visit the comment section below:

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