September 3, 2023

Meat barbacoa, parrillada

Natacha Sanz Caballero Meat and Poultry barbacoa de carne, barbecue, Bos Nostrum, cattle farm, celebration, cooking outdoors, family gathering, Spanish cuisine, Taroncheral

It’s only fitting that today’s post be a follow-up to the last one, Cooking a la Plancha, Seafood the Spanish Way!, given that that’s a customary cookout when we are in Spain. It’s common with meats too! On this long, Labor Day weekend, the unofficial end of summer and a popular weekend for cooking outdoors, try meat barbacoa, parrillada! 

Only the temperatures outdoors indicate that summer is still here, because the Fall routines started a few weeks ago with the start of school. Granted, not very many states in the United States start school before Labor Day weekend, and most European countries will not start until early to mid September. But no matter the weather, cooking outdoors in the late summer and early fall is one of my favorite times of year to do so. 

For barbacoa de carne, meat barbacoa or parrillada, at home in Spain we use the same utensil that we used for seafood barbecue, the plancha, but in this case we can also use a grill basket, which is probably a utensil you already have and use for your cookouts.

As mentioned in the Seafood a la Plancha post (check it here), cooking a la plancha allows the freshest ingredients to be served in an honest and unadorned, simple manner. In fact, this post barely contains a recipe, because the cooking method is very intuitive. Like cooking seafood a la plancha, cooking meats is very straightforward and doesn’t even require an elaborate recipe. Or so we should ask my brother-in-law Jorge, master barbacoa cook, with sous-chef Jaime, who gladly steps in when needed. At our house, manning the barbacoa is reserved for the men. Mostly, I am sharing a few photos of how we do it at home, when our whole extended family reunites in the summer.

Cooking meats at our family’s house in Onteniente makes total sense, given that Jorge co-owns and manages a cattle farm. We can always count on the best cuts of beef, compliments of Jorge, which we supplement and complement with different sausages (mostly pork derived, like different kinds of chorizo, blood sausage and longaniza, a long pork sausage similar to but thinner than Italian sausage). By popular demand, lamb chops, a favorite particularly amongst the children, are also always on the menu.

Every meal is a celebration, because we always have something to celebrate! Whether it be birthdays of various family members (a summer regular) to the occasional exceptional celebration, we can count on more than one cookout. This summer we celebrated two graduations: we have a new architect and a new doctor in the family!

About Bos Nostrum

Bos Nostrum is a cattle farm located near Valencia, Spain, where 5000 animals are bred each year. The farm includes an R+D facility to bring new technologies to cattle farming. Nowadays, the cattle farmer has to adapt to the times and the new kind of consumer, using the latest technologies to optimize and provide for a sustainable, cattle farming  model. Following its commitment for a greener environment, 100% of the energy used at Bos Nostrum is clean energy that comes from the wind and the sun. 

The farm’s location provides the perfect temperature and hours of natural light throughout the year to provide the cattle with optimal conditions. The wellbeing of the animals is of the utmost importance at Bos Nostrum —a team of veterinarians on site make sure of it. For everybody working at Bos Nostrum, the cow is the protagonist.

If you want to know and learn more about the sustainable cattle farming model at Bos Nostrum, visit www.bosnostrum.com

Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend!