🇦🇷 Argentina · Family: Asado al Pan · Heat: Grilled · Bread: pan-frances · Proteins: beef
The Sándwich de Matambre is the thin Argentine flank cut, matambre, cooked and served in bread, a beefy steak sandwich built around a cut valued for its flavor and bite rather than its tenderness. The angle is the cut and how it is treated. Matambre is the flat sheet of meat that lies between the hide and the ribs, lean, fibrous, and full of flavor, but tough if mishandled. The sandwich therefore hinges on the meat reaching the right register: either rolled, stuffed, and cooked slow until it gives, or grilled and sliced thin against the grain so the long fibers are cut short and the meat eats cleanly. Done right it is a deeply savory sandwich with real character; done wrong it is leathery and a chore between the bread.
The build rests almost entirely on the meat. In its most composed form the matambre is laid out flat, layered with hard egg, carrots, peppers, and herbs, rolled tight, tied, and cooked, then chilled and sliced into pinwheels so each piece is a cross-section of meat and filling. In its plainer form it is simply grilled over the parrilla, salted, and sliced thin. Either way it goes into a crusty roll, pan francés or similar, split and often warmed so it has structure against the juices, and is dressed with chimichurri or salsa criolla, the herb-and-vinegar sauce cutting the richness of the beef. Good execution shows matambre that is tender enough to bite through cleanly, the rolled version holding its spiral without falling apart, the grilled version charred outside and juicy within, the bread crisp and soaking the runoff without dissolving. Sloppy execution undercooks the connective tissue so the meat is rubbery, overcooks it dry, or slices it thick along the grain so each bite pulls.
It varies most by whether the matambre is stuffed and rolled or simply grilled flat. The rolled form, matambre arrollado, is a composed cold or warm pinwheel, more involved and closer to a fiambre than a steak sandwich. The grilled-flat form is the direct, spare version, the cut taken straight to the parrilla and the roll. Dressed with chimichurri it leans sharp and herbal; with salsa criolla it goes vegetal and tangy. These two treatments are different enough that each deserves its own attention rather than being collapsed together; what unites them is a single distinctive cut that punishes careless cooking and slicing more than any topping ever could.
More from this family
Other Asado al Pan sandwiches in Argentina: