The skewers go over the hottest part of the charcoal, and each pass of the brush makes the coals hiss and sends up a puff of garlicky smoke. The cubes of beef heart darken at the edges and the potato on the end picks up brown spots. Then a thick, orange-yellow sauce of toasted peanuts and yellow chili gets spooned over everything. This is the Bolivian anticucho, a night-time street skewer: dense, meaty beef heart seasoned with cumin and black pepper, and a sauce that is nutty, gently hot and rich enough to coat the potato.
It is a different skewer from the Peruvian one. The Peruvian anticuchos are built on an ají panca marinade. The Bolivian skewer here is rubbed with dry spices, basted with a sharp lemon-and-garlic liquid as it grills, and eaten with peanut and ají amarillo sauce.
Beef Heart After Dark: Where the Bolivian Anticucho Belongs
Anticucho is usually traced to the Andes, and both Peru and Bolivia claim it. Where it began is not settled, so it makes more sense to talk about how each country eats it. In Bolivia, anticuchos are street food of the night. The women who run the stalls are called anticucheras. They grill beef heart over charcoal and hand the skewers over with potatoes and either a hot chili sauce or a peanut llajwa.
Cubes or slices, boiled or roasted potato
The details change from cook to cook. One common style slices the heart thin, marinates it in spices, oil and vinegar, and serves it with roasted potato on the side. The version here cuts the heart into chunky 1¼-inch (3 cm) cubes, threads four onto each skewer and ends the skewer with a boiled, peeled potato, so the potato goes over the fire with the meat. In Peru the boiled potato also sits at the end of the skewer. Bolivia's version is set apart by its peanut sauce.
Peanuts turn up all over Bolivian cooking. If the sauce wins you over, the same toasted-peanut depth carries a whole bowl of sopa de maní, Bolivia's peanut soup. Salteñas and silpancho round out a Bolivian table, and the Bolivia country page collects the rest.
The skewer belongs to the people who grill it. Anticucheras are the women who set up charcoal grills on the street at night. They baste, turn and sauce each skewer to order, so the meat comes to you hot, straight off the fire.
Ingredients
The rub is bold for this amount of heart. If you want a milder skewer, cut back the garlic and salt in the rub and keep the rest as written.
The sauce is built on peanuts. Tell guests before serving and keep peanut-free food away from the sauce bowl and its spoon. Jarred chili pastes and other prepared products can contain sulfites, so read the label on your ají amarillo.
Equipment
- 5 skewers, metal or wooden (soak wooden ones in water before use)
- Charcoal grill, grill pan, broiler or barbecue
- Pot for boiling the potatoes
- Skillet for toasting the peanuts
- Mortar and pestle
- Saucepan for the sauce
- Wooden spoon
- Pastry or basting brush
- Two small bowls for the basting liquid (one to store it, one to brush from)
- Food thermometer
- Sharp knife and cutting board
Choosing and Substituting: Heart, Ají and Peanuts
Two ingredients decide whether this tastes Bolivian: the beef heart and the ají amarillo. Beef heart is a lean, firm muscle with a clean, meaty flavor. Ask a butcher for it, or look in the offal section of a shop that sells whole cuts. If you can only get pork heart, use a thick one and expect a different flavor.
Ají amarillo is the yellow Andean chili that gives the sauce its color and fruity heat. Jars of Peruvian ají amarillo paste are easy to find online and in Latin American grocers, and they work in place of the ground chili. If you have neither, sweet paprika with a little cayenne gives a sauce of similar color and heat, but the flavor is different, so treat it as a stand-in.
For the peanuts, buy shelled and unsalted so the salt stays in your hands. Chicken broth makes a rounder sauce than water, and water keeps the peanut flavor at the front.
| Keep for the Bolivian taste | Fine to change at home |
|---|---|
| Beef heart, trimmed and cubed | Charcoal → grill pan, broiler or barbecue |
| Peanut and ají amarillo sauce | Ground ají → ají amarillo paste |
| A potato on the end of the skewer | Chicken broth → water |
| Basting on the fire with water, oil, lemon and garlic | Wooden skewers → metal skewers |
Beef heart has a silvery membrane, tough connective tissue and hard fat. Cut all of it away before you cube the meat. Any that you leave on stays chewy no matter how well the grilling goes, and it is the main thing that separates a tender skewer from a rubbery one.
Method: From Boiling Pot to Charcoal
Start by soaking the wooden skewers and putting the potatoes on to boil. The potatoes cook on their own, and while they do you trim and season the heart, which then waits in the refrigerator. The peanut sauce needs your full attention, because it has to be stirred for about 30 minutes. Skewering and grilling come last, so the skewers reach the table hot.
When It Goes Wrong
| What you see | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Chewy, rubbery bits in the heart | Membrane or sinew left on the meat | Trim more thoroughly next time. Cut away any obvious strands before serving |
| Outside dark, center still raw | The fire is too hot for the size of the cubes | Move the skewers to a cooler part of the grill and keep turning until the center is cooked through |
| Sauce tastes bitter or burnt | Peanuts toasted too dark, or the sauce caught on the pan | Toast only to golden. Pour the sauce into a clean pan without scraping the bottom |
| Sauce too thick to spoon | It reduced more than it cooked | Stir in broth or water a little at a time until it flows slowly |
| Wooden skewers burn through | They went on the grill dry | Soak wooden skewers in water before threading, or use metal skewers |
| Potato splits or drops off | It was boiled too long | Boil only until a skewer slides through, and thread it through the center |
Serving, Variations and Leftovers
At the table
Anticuchos are eaten hot, as soon as they leave the fire, so cook them in batches that people can finish straight away. Put out extra boiled potatoes and an extra bowl of peanut sauce, and let everyone take a skewer by the end and sauce it how they like. They make the center of an evening grill, the way the street stalls serve them after dark.
Variations
- Hotter sauce. Add more ají amarillo, or a little extra chili, to the onion in step 5. The sauce turns sharper and redder, and the peanut sweetness fades into the background.
- Sauce on the side. Serve the peanut sauce in a bowl for dipping. The browned surface of the meat stays crisp longer, and guests who want less sauce can take less.
- Roasted potatoes instead. Leave the potato off the skewer and roast potatoes separately, as one street style does. You get more crust on the potato.
- Thin slices in a vinegar marinade. Slice the heart thin and marinate it in spices, oil and vinegar before grilling. It cooks faster, chars more at the edges and tastes tangier than the cubed, rubbed version.
Leftovers
Beef heart is organ meat, so cook only what you will eat and finish it the same day. Do not save the basting liquid from the brushing bowl.
Frequently asked questions
Can I make it for someone with a peanut allergy?
Leave out the peanut sauce and serve the skewers with a hot chili sauce, another way they are eaten in Bolivia. Cook and serve the peanut sauce away from that plate, with its own spoon. The meat, rub and basting liquid contain no peanuts.
Should I marinate the heart overnight?
Not for this version. Here the dry rub goes on the cubes and the lemon-and-garlic basting does the rest on the grill. Some Bolivian cooks soak the heart overnight in vinegar, soy sauce and cumin, but that is a separate recipe and does not mix with this one.
Can I cook these without an outdoor grill?
Yes. A grill pan on high heat or a hot broiler both brown the heart well. Baste exactly as you would over charcoal. You lose some of the smoky flavor, but the char from a grill pan comes close.
Can I use regular beef instead of heart?
A lean cut such as beef round works with the same rub, sauce and basting. It gives a softer, milder skewer and lacks the firm, dense bite of heart. Cut it into cubes the same size so it fits the skewers the same way.
