Bavette is the French word for flank steak, a highly flavourful, loosely textured flat cut of meat taken from the abdominal muscles of the cow.
Bavettte is a versatile cut of meat that I’ve enjoyed time and time again (cooked hot and fast direct over coals), however, with a little extra prep you can transform this steak into something on an entirely different level.
. . . let’s do this!
The Bavette Steak
I purchased this Bavette from ‘Village Butchers‘ which set me back £15.99. Typically a Bavette steak comes in between 800g and 1.2kg.
The Prep
After a light trim the first challenge was to butterfly the steak. This was a little daunting at first (if I was to be honest), but once I got stuck in it wasn’t as difficult as I expected.
With one hand I applied a little pressure on top of the steak and with the other I took a sharp knife and slowly worked my way down through the steak leaving roughly a 1cm ‘edge’ alike the spine of a book.
Once opened up I took a meat tenderiser and went to work across the steak.
Finally I evened things up a little by trimming off some areas that were just hanging off and lightly applied salt / pepper to both sides.
The Filling
As this was my first pinwheel I decided to keep things fairly simple. First was a layer of spinach followed by a layer of prosciutto and coppa before topping off with some lovely thin sheets of Gouda cheese.
Note: Make sure you leave a 2cm edge when you add the filling.
Once you are happy with the filling roll up the steak as tightly as you can from the bottom to the top.
Note: Ideally the grain of the steak should be running horizontally when you roll the steak up.
The Pinwheels
Once you’ve rolled up your steak you need to take some butchers twine and tie tightly at roughly 3cm intervals down the entire length.
Next take a skewer and push through the steak directly adjacent to where you’ve tied each line of twine.
Finally you need to cut into pinwheels by slicing through the steak between each line of twine.
It sounds a bit of a ‘faff’, but trust me . . . it’s worth it!
The Cook
I used the ‘Kamado Joe – Joe Jnr’ that I got from ‘BBQs 2u‘ for this recipe.
First I used a HOT cast iron skillet to sear the edges and create a barrier / crust . . . if you don’t do this I fear you’ll loose a lot of the cheesy goodness.
Once both sides were seared I placed the deflector plate in the KJ and cooked indirect on the grate until the internal temperature was reading 135°f. Once the pinwheels were up to temperature I removed from the heat and placed on a plate loosely covered in foil and let rest for 10 minutes.
The Final Result
