Whenever at a Mexican restaurant I almost always get the carne asada. At every place I’ve been to in my area it comes as a steak, as in not sliced, accompanied with tortillas, and typically also pico de gallo, guacamole, rice, beans, and a small salad of lettuce and tomatoes. The plate generally resembles something like this, though the steak is usually brought out on its own sizzling plate.
I usually just cut it and eat it as I would any steak, but the accompaniments seem to infer that I am to slice it and make a fajita/burrito of it.
There is no way it is meant to be eaten. Eat it the way you most enjoy it. Here (Mèxico) we usually slice it and prepare our own tacos. But it is strictly a matter of personal preference. Many times the women in the family are not eating tortillas in their constant efforts to stay thin so they just treat it like a steak. I don’t have that concern and make my tacos with a little bit of everything on the plate.
Har I thought from your first sentence you were saying one is not supposed to eat the carne. Just look at it, and smell it? But then my brain snapped on.
My Mexican sister would cut it up and wrap it in tortilla with other goodies, but like CBEscapee says there is no “proper” or authentic way to eat it, so feel free to break out the knife and fork and shovel it down like any steak. This thread is making me hungry!
You eat it any way you want. In my family, you use your hands to rip it apart and either use tortilla to eat individual pieces (some use the tortilla to tear of a piece) or make a taco. That whole plate would be eaten with tortilla, not knife and fork. I actually had such a meal last week.
I’m in a heavily hispanic area, and everywhere that sells it, uncooked, has it already cut up. I’ve not seen anyone eat it like a steak, but it’s a good idea. I just wonder that the long-term marinade process might not be as effective with a whole piece of meat like that. The idea is to use cheap meat and break it down to tender during the marinade process. I’m wondering if some places are just tossing some spices on and calling it asada, hrm.
Asada just means grilled. It can be a cheap cut or expensive meat. It can be marinated or not. The carne can be beef or pork. In our family we rarely marinade the meat. But what the plate in the link is missing are the grilled cebollitas. And we usually serve it with a salsa made with charred chiles, charred tomatos mashed in a molcajete then add chopped fresh white onion and a few sprigs of cilantro.
I have no idea about the appropriate way to consume Carne Asada. All I know is that the best ever is make in a tiny seaside town in Oregon in a old, down-in-the-heels, ex-Texaco gas station, run by a Mexican family. The have a tiny little lunch counter in a corner that churns out the most AMAZING Mexican food, especially their Carne Asada burritos. Say what you want to about immigration policy, but I will fight to the death anyone who tries to remove my source of Carne Asada.
