Madeira Island

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 1 kg beef from the leg
• 13 bay leaves
• 50 g salt, coarse
• 5 cloves garlic

Instructions

Working time approx. 30 minutes; Rest period approx. 4 days; Cooking/baking time approx. 1 hour; Total time approx. 4 days 1 hour 30 minutes

delicious grilled skewer in simple Madeiran style

A few days before the meal, get the beef (from the leg, even with a bit of fat) from the butcher and store it in a cold room or in the vegetable drawer of the refrigerator. On barbecue day, cut the meat into 3-4 cm pieces. Tear the bay leaves into small pieces by hand, mince the garlic, and mix both with the salt. Now put about 4 pieces of beef on a skewer (if you have them, use sticks from a bay tree) and press a little of the bay leaf, garlic, and salt mixture onto the meat with your hand (see photos). Oil is not necessary and will only alter the flavor. For the perfect flavor, you can heat the grill with real wood until it has burned down to embers. Once the skewers are on the grill, they must be rotated constantly. As soon as the beef is deliciously browned on the outside, they can be removed from the grill. Important: Now tap the skewers against a solid surface to get the salt and bay leaves off the meat. After that, all you have to do is enjoy; sauces are really unnecessary with this meat. You can serve it with homemade sweet potato bread, for example, which is available in Madeira under the name “Bolo do Caco.”