Carne Mechada

Venezuela Pulled Beef or Carne Mechada, is one of the pillars of Venezuelan cuisine, learn to make it and you already have nailed a good chunk of all Venezuelan recipes, is a staple in every Venezuelan home, and also a controversial topic among Venezuelans, and yes you guessed it, every family has its own recipe, which one is the best? I truly don’t know, but this recipe is easy to customise to your liking once you understand the basics of it.

Pulled beef is also enjoyed throughout all Latin America and part of the Caribbean, with slight differences depending on the Country’s culture you’ll find it in Colombia, Panama, El Salvador, also called Ropa Vieja in Cuba and Puerto Rico. In Latin America Carne mechada or this style of pulled beef is traditionally paired with fried sweet plantains and beans, and makes a key component of Venezuela’s national dish Pabellon criollo which also includes rice, sometimes avocado, fried egg and fresh cheese. It’s used in other many preparations in Venezuela such as arepas, empanadas, pastelitos, bollos pelones, etc., reason why I decided to post this recipe as a stand-alone one which will be the component for some of my future recipes.

Now the story behind this particular adaption lies in my husband’s cravings for eating his mum’s Carne Mechada which I would often joke is one of those super red almost radioactive looking shredded beef, I’ve been trying to recreate my mother in law’s Carne Mechada for years, and this one is pretty close, a super tasty version, almost reminds me to a ragu sauce, therefore might be a little bit too saucy to add as a filling to empanadas and pastelitos, in which case you can actually finely diced the sofrito instead of blending it to a paste.

Tips to make Venezuelan Pulled Beef (shredded beef)

For Venezuelan Pulled Beef we use traditionally skirt or flank steak which is a tough cut with lots of connective tissue and that goes super tender after cooking for about 40 min, and shreds easily, however here in Australia unless you ask the butcher directly skirt is not a popular cut to find so you could also use Chuck or Brisket though they are a bit tougher all you need to do is cook it until tender and that it easily shreds apart. If you have a pressure cooker or a slow cooker you can use these to cook your meat, if using a pressure cooker for skirt cook for about 20 min, all the tougher cuts might need 40 min to an hour.
To avoid beef from drying keep it in the braising liquid while resting and when shredded add it directly in the sofrito sauce so it starts soaking all the flavours or keep in the liquid while you wait for the sauce to be ready.
If you happen to find Slow-cooked Brisket that is fairly plain, that is no bbq sauce on top of it, you can use it as a shortcut, shredding it and adding it to the sofrito sauce, however, the resulting flavour profile might be a bit different than is cooking your own beef, you might need to adjust your spices a bit, but this had been a good hack when we are wanting to make empanadas and we have not made Carne Mechada previously.
After the beef is cooked, is time to make a good aromatic sofrito which in Venezuela is mainly composed of sauteed onions, garlic, capsicum, and tomatoes [we also use aji dulce but it is really hard to find outside Venezuela you can try adding a few sweet chilli peppers which are not entirely the same of aji dulce] and herbs like oregano, and cumin.
To add an extra punch and umami smoky flavour I used Worcestershire sauce and a bit of tomato paste.
Garnish with parsley.
This same technique can be used for pulled pork, chicken, and even fish for the last two I tend to keep the tomato off the sofrito.