Matambre Arrollado – Stuffed Argentine Beef Roll
The classic Argentine beef roll with the standard filling: hard-boiled egg, red pepper, carrot and the usual spices. It is rolled tightly, boiled, pressed under weight and sliced cold — the star of the Christmas platter and of every party table.
At the butcher's, ask for the thin flank — beef skirt or flap meat — and ask for it opened out flat.
The pressing is not a detail, it is the step that decides the result: cooled under weight the roll holds together when you slice it; without weight every slice falls apart. A board with a few tins on it is enough. Are you of the chard-and-cheese school? That version is Chichi's super matambre, the house family recipe.
You will also need: kitchen string or a butcher's net to tie it, and cooking-safe film or a clean cloth.
Ingredients
- 1 sheet of beef flank (thin flank / beef skirt), about 1.5 kg
- 3 hard-boiled eggs
- 1 red pepper, in strips
- 2 carrots, in fine batons (raw or briefly blanched)
- 4 garlic cloves, chopped
- 1/2 cup chopped parsley
- 1 tbsp sweet paprika
- 1 tsp chilli flakes
- Salt and pepper
- For the broth: onion, carrot, celery and bay
Method
- 1
Lay the flank out with the fat side up and trim the fat off with a sharp knife, without cutting into the meat. Straighten the edges.
- 2
Season the inner face with the garlic, the parsley, the paprika, the chilli flakes, salt and pepper, leaving 3 cm clear along one edge for the seal.
- 3
Lay the strips of pepper and the batons of carrot in parallel lines running to the shorter side, and set the hard-boiled eggs, whole or halved, down the middle.
- 4
Roll it up tightly, starting from the side opposite the clear edge, making sure the filling does not shift. The firmer the roll, the cleaner the final slice.
- 5
Tie it with kitchen string every 2-3 cm (or slide it into a butcher's net), and wrap it in cooking-safe film or a cloth, closing the ends like a sweet wrapper.
- 6
Simmer it in broth with the vegetables and salt over gentle heat for 90-100 minutes, turning it halfway through.
- 7
Take it out, put it between two boards with a weight on top (a pot full of water will do) and press it like that until it is cold. Then refrigerate for 12 hours without untying it.
- 8
Untie it, cut it into 1 cm slices and serve cold with russian salad or on a platter. Well wrapped it keeps a week in the fridge.