A recipe for vitel toné: rump steak with tuna and anchovy sauce

I am fascinated by a person’s roots. I don’t believe they are set in stone. In Argentina especially, everything is fluid. The country is only 200 years old, so things that you think of as old often aren’t. This dish is, though. To me, it’s as symbolic or representative of Argentinian cuisine as it gets. It could be the most important of them all … a real pre-Columbian, European dish, that was brought to Argentina by immigrants from Piedmont in Italy that has evolved through the decades. I like dishes that have moved as much as I have.

I am half of the mountains, half of the sea – a bit like this dish, which, combining beef and tuna as it does, is also a mix of the two. When I was three months old, my family moved to the Argentinian Andes, on the border with Chile and Bolivia, to a small town called Jujuy, where the cuisine is steeped in aboriginal produce. You can eat the best potatoes ever there.

When I was eight, we moved back to Buenos Aires, the big city, which is as different as it gets from the wild nature and rural beauty of the north. When I was 19, I left Argentina, emigrating as my grandparents had from Italy when they were younger. I travelled to the US, Uruguay, Japan, then came to Spain. I’ve been here for 10 years now, which is the longest I’ve been anywhere since I left my home country. I’m a mix from a mix from a mix, from a people always on the move.

The flipside of the sense of homelessness you can feel coming from a society as new as Argentina is that you can absorb everything. I have felt at home in so many places – eating ramen in Tokyo or sticky rice with a sauce I couldn’t really understand in Laos. A good dish in China will touch you in the same way as a good dish in Italy. And that same dish, even if you eat it in London, as long as it’s been made as well, you will feel it too. In good food, history and place become blurry. With this dish, even if your origins aren’t Italian – or Argentinian, for that matter – there’s a feeling of familiarity. Wherever they are, people everywhere need warmth, food, companionship – they want to feel comfortable. I can find comfort in many places – and ultimately, good food is where home is.

When I was a child in Buenos Aires, a big tray of vitel toné would always be on the table whenever there was a family gathering. It’s the perfect dish for a party – you make it then forget about it until it’s time to eat – it’s delicious at room temperature. And it makes excellent leftovers. It would be one of many dishes piled high on the table: homemade terrines, cold cuts, cheeses, pork loin with caramel sauce, chicken with cream and mushroom sauce. And always, lots of local wine. Our family only ever got together on special occasions, so when we did it was noisy. Everyone was happy and excited.

We’d listen to bossa nova and opera. We’d eat our fill, then have my grandmother’s strawberry, cream and caramel dessert, then coffee. Since I left, I’ve rarely had this kind of gathering. I’ve tried to do it with all my friends. But I stopped because there weren’t any children running around, and somehow everyone would end up a little depressed. You need to have kids around – they bring the joy, they are the reason to gather.

Vitel toné – beef with a tuna sauce

My mother Silvia, my aunt Mariquita and my cousin Florencia each cook slightly different versions of this dish. I love them all. In my own version, I respect the traditional Piedmontese ingredients, but I add some South American spirit to the method. I love to use beef that has been cooked the night before on a traditional wood-fired asado or barbecue.

Serves 6-10
1½-2kg point of rump steak
Salt and black pepper
50ml olive oil
2 onions
1 stick celery
2 carrots
5 garlic cloves
1 bay leaf
350ml white wine

For the sauce
6 fillets salted anchovies
250g tuna in olive oil
4 hard-boiled egg yolks
1 tbsp whole milk
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp sherry vinegar
200ml vegetable oil
200ml mild olive oil

To finish
Zest of 1 lemon
A small handful of chives, finely chopped
A handful of parsley, finely chopped
30g salted capers, washed and soaked for 15 minutes
Sourdough bread, toasted, to serve

1 First take the beef out of the fridge about 1 hour before you need to cook it, and leave it in a cool place to temper (warm up slowly). Then salt it generously all over and preheat the oven to 250C – or as high as your oven goes. When hot, put the beef in a roasting pan with the olive oil, vegetables, garlic and bay leaf and roast for 5 minutes. Add the wine and lower the temperature to 190C/375F/gas mark 5 and cook it for 50 minutes more. Take out of the oven and let it cool, then refrigerate it for several hours. Strain the gravy, cool it and get rid of the fat. Set the gravy aside in the fridge.

2 To make the sauce, put the anchovies in a mortar without any oil and pound into a paste. Add in the tuna and pound, then the egg yolks, milk, dijon mustard and vinegar, and pound everything together.

3 Mix in the oils. Once you’ve obtained a smooth sauce, whisk briskly to emulsify the oils, adding the strained gravy to thin the sauce slightly if necessary, until you have a smooth, thick sauce. Season to taste.

4 Cut the meat into thin slices and arrange on a serving platter. Dress with the sauce and leave to stand for a few hours before serving.

5 When ready to serve, sprinkle with lemon zest, parsley, capers, chives and season with black pepper. Serve with toasted sourdough bread.

• Estanislao Carenzo is chef-owner of Sudestada in Madrid and Elephant Crocodile Monkey in Barcelona; @ECarenzo