How to Grill Picanha

Have you ever been to a churrascaria — one of those Brazilian steakhouses where waiters in floppy gaucho pants roam the room with hunks of meat on long skewers? Then chances are you’ve tried picanha, a cut recognizable for the way it is folded, so the thick cap of fat furls over the meat. Usually three or more chunks of picanha arrive stacked on one skewer, offering a choice of temperatures when sliced: some rosy, others crimson, all remarkable for their pure, beefy flavor. 

In Brazil, picanha is pretty much everyone’s favorite steak to grill over an open flame, and lately Americans have been getting in on the action. Like a tri-tip, this steak is inexpensive and can feed a table of eight with ease. “I’m quite taken with the cut because my family and I are eating a lot less beef now because of the expense,” says Food & Wine editor in chief Hunter Lewis. “It’s still relatively inexpensive when compared to other butcher favorites that are now nearly $20 a pound, like skirt and hanger.”

Some cooks advocate first cutting picanha —“I have been down the rabbit hole of watching Brazilian live-fire Instagrammers slice the picanha into skinnier slabs to grill,” Lewis admits — but I prefer to leave these two-to-three-pound cuts whole. Their wedge shape assures that every guest can root through the service platter to find a preferred level of doneness, and as long as a picanha isn’t overcooked or too thickly sliced, it provides the toothsome but not tough texture of a great Sunday roast. This analogy is apt because, in a way, that’s what it is. 

The picanha is also known as a rump cap. If you can picture one of those slightly creepy whole cow profile meat charts, then this rump cap is precisely where you’d imagine it — right by the tail. It is the biceps femoris, or what we bipeds might call our hamstring muscle. If you’ve ever been to a French bistro and ordered a coulotte steak frites, then bingo: You’re eating picanha. The French remove the very thick fat cap attached to the muscle, but this is what makes a true picanha so special. As it cooks, the fat bastes and flavors the meat.

I played around with two picanhas I bought at Wild Fork — the Brazilian-owned chain of frozen food shops that has helped to popularize the cut in America. For a USDA Prime picanha, I trimmed off a bit of the inch-thick fat and scored it. I seasoned the whole thing aggressively and then grilled it over indirect heat (careful — that fat can really feed a fire) until it had reached an internal temperature of 120°F in the thickest part. After a good 15 minutes rest, it was ready to slice, and man: what a feast. Chimichurri was precisely the sauce this meat needed. 

I then roasted a grass-fed picanha and we were equally happy with the results. After trimming and scoring the fat, I seasoned and rolled the whole thing lengthwise into a picanha football and tied it up. I seared it in a skillet to sear the exposed meat and render the fat, then popped it in a 400°F-oven with a little foil tented atop. Once the internal temperature hit its mark (125°F for medium-rare), I let it rest and sliced it thinly. 

There was only one problem. Sure, we had leftover chimichurri, but this beef demanded horseradish sauce. Maybe even a popover. Next time.