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Wood-roasted rib-eye of beef with piquillo peppers

Wood-roasted rib-eye of beef with piquillo peppers

It’s preferable to use a small wood or charcoal-fuelled barbecue for this recipe but you can also use a gas barbecue or chargrill plate (see note). The optimum temperature for grilling beef is 80C. You can measure this by holding a thermometer above the barbecue. Piquillo peppers are a small, sweet, almost cone-shaped variety of pepper from Navarra. They have amazing flavour because they are chargrilled over vines and peeled before being preserved.

Wood-roasted rib-eye of beef with piquillo peppers

Serves 4
Cooking Time Prep time 10 mins, cook 1 hr (plus preparing embers)
1 kg   red gum or other dense woodchips
1   beef rib-eye (about 800gm), at room temperature
1 tbsp   olive oil
6-8   dry grapevine trimmings (optional)
Piquillo peppers
60 ml   (¼ cup) olive oil
2   garlic cloves, thinly sliced
400 gm   canned piquillo peppers, drained (see note)


1 Preheat a coal-bedded barbecue to very high. Make a fire in the barbecue, using woodchips, about 45 minutes before cooking the meat (see note). Once flames have died down to a bed of embers and the grill is hot, season beef with sea salt, rub olive oil over and cook, turning every 5 minutes, until it reaches 50C on a meat thermometer and is cooked rare (30-45 minutes). Add grapevines to embers in the last 10 minutes of cooking (add fresh wood to fire if embers burn out).
2 Meanwhile, for piquillo peppers, warm olive oil in a saucepan over low-medium heat, add garlic and stir until oil is infused (1-2 minutes), then add peppers and stir until peppers bleed into oil (10-15 minutes), and season to taste with sea salt.
3 Thickly slice meat, season to taste with sea salt and serve with piquillo peppers and silverbeet with potato.

Note If using a gas barbecue or chargrill, skip step 1 and do not use woodchips or grapevines in cooking. Sear meat 2 minutes each side, then roast, turning occasionally, at 130C until rare (30 minutes). Piquillo peppers are wood-fired Spanish peppers available from Spanish delicatessens.

Drink Suggestion The 2005 Mount Langi Ghiran Shiraz, Ararat, Victoria or, better yet, an older vintage such as the 1997 or 2000.

RECIPE Dan Hunter PHOTOGRAPHY William Meppem STYLING Lisa Featherby and Geraldine Munoz DRINK SUGGESTION Lok Thornton


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