Lean beef rubbed with garlic and adobo, wrapped in a sheet of pig skin and slow-cooked overnight in the dying embers of the fire that roasted the day's mamona. One of the most criollo dishes of the Llanos.
Carne a la perra is one of the most criollo dishes of the Colombian Llanos, the eastern plains. Lean beef is wrapped in a sheet of pig skin and slow-cooked overnight in the embers of the same fire that roasted the day's mamona (veal). Born as the ration of the peons on the cattle haciendas, it uses the residual heat of the working fire, so no separate fuel is needed. It is a dish of Meta and Villavicencio, documented as part of the hato ganadero tradition.
The beef inside the skin wrapper is fibrous, falling apart into shreds, saturated with its own juices and the garlic-adobo rub, the pig skin outside gelatinised and sticky. Eaten with tungos or pan de arroz, it is deep, meaty and faintly smoky from the embers.
The technique is long, slow cooking in a sealed wrapper. The lean beef is rubbed with garlic and adobo, then enclosed in a sheet of fresh pig skin, sewn shut. The parcel is buried in the warm embers of the day's fire and left for 12-14 hours. The skin acts as both wrapper and basting layer, rendering its fat into the beef while holding every drop of juice inside, so the meat poaches in its own liquid and never dries.
Variations
Some hatos cook it in a clay pot set at the fire's edge instead of buried. A Casanare version adds achiote to the rub.
On the Palate
Where Carne a la Perra sits in the Colombian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 10How it's made
6 steps · 30 min
- 110 min
Take 2kg lean beef (such as round), rub all over with 8 crushed garlic cloves, 2 tbsp adobo seasoning and salt; rest 1 hour.
- 28 min
Lay a fresh pig skin sheet flat, place the beef in the centre, and fold the skin around it; sew the edges shut with twine and a larding needle.
Watch outSew the pig-skin wrapper shut tight with no gaps — it holds every drop of juice in so the beef poaches in its own liquid; a leak and it dries out.
- 36 min
Light a hardwood fire in the morning and let it burn down to a deep bed of warm embers by evening.
- 45 min
Bury the wrapped parcel in the warm embers and leave it undisturbed for 12 hours, until the next morning.
Watch outBury it in warm embers, not live flame, and leave it 12 hours undisturbed — steady gentle heat renders the skin fat in without scorching the parcel.
- 56 min
Dig out, rest 15 minutes, then cut open the skin wrapper.
- 65 min
Shred the beef and serve with tungos llaneros or pan de arroz.
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