Perhaps not a purists rendition, but tried my hand at a Portuguese espetada last weekend.
Large chunks of rump steak interspersed with flat mushrooms and peppers threaded on to long flat skewers. What really fuelled my enthusiasm for the dish was the thought of hanging the skewers inside the smoker, but without the water pan, making sure the heat gets way up. Of course if you don't have a tall smoker like bbq within which to hang these beauties they could just go straight on the braai.
For these I used:
- 1 Kg inch thick rump steak cut into roughly inch by inch cubes
- Two or three green and red peppers
- 8 flat mushrooms
- Olive oil
- An excessive amount of chopped garlic (almost a whole bulb)
- 250g butter
Marinaded the steak chunks in most of the garlic and some olive oil over night. Threaded the skewers as the coals were burning down. Hung them within the smoker using the fish hooks, closed the lid. Put the left over garlic in a small bowl with the butter, melted down to a consistency thin enough to dab on to the skewers with a food brush while they cooked. The coals need to be at their hottest so that vegetables and steak get a little of that seared around the edges look. Took about 15 mins all in, perhaps closer to 8-10 if you did this directly over the coals laid flat on the bbq.
This will probably serve six if you have people around and they have something to go with it, or four blokes with just beer.
