Uruguay (October 10th, 2025)
This week, in preparation for an upcoming conference, I helped process a cow.
You might think that’s an strange sentence, but this conference will partially be about rural real estate, homesteading, and self sufficiency. One day of the event, attendees will be driven out to a party at the ranch. They’ll meet locals and fellow expats that have already made the move and see the potential for ranching and farming in the Uruguayan countryside. To make the experience even more authentic they’ll be eating the cow we butchered earlier this week.
This wasn’t the first time I’ve helped process a cow. Late last year I learned some basic cuts and helped make sausages. The casero (Spanish for caretaker) and his wife on the ranch are great and always willing to share their knowledge.
What I wasn’t present for last year was the killing and skinning of the cow. I’ve seen a fair amount of cows be killed during a bull fight I went to a while back— this time around there was a lot less flair and drama… It was still quite painful to watch, but it’s important to witness and understand the circle of life in all it’s stages.
Once the deed was done, the cows legs were tied and it was hung upside down by a tractor. The goal is to get as much blood out of the body as soon as possible. This is called ‘exsanguination’. If you don’t do this, the meat will be very dark and have a strong odor and flavor. Not a gamey taste like venison, but strong because the blood will still be in the meat.
Then, it was laid down onto a plastic sheet and we began the skinning process. It’s surprisingly easy to remove the hide — given that you have a sharp enough knife... You simply slice along the line where the fatty membrane attaches the skin to the muscle.
Eventually, we plan to tan a cow hide for our living room rug. The idea came up for this cow, but I hadn’t done enough research or preparation. Next time it is!
After the entire cow was skinned the casero took a knife and a hacksaw and began splitting the cow open (partly seen below). Things got pretty graphic from here (lots of guts…) but the kids that were with us loved it! There are certain organs we saved, the heart, liver, kidneys, and small intestine that can be eaten or repurposed. For example, the small intestine lining is often cleaned out and used as sausage casing. Try not to think about that next time you eat some bratwurst…
Here’s us preparing to contain the mess that was about to spill out:
To finish off the day the tractor carried the cow to the barn. There it was strung up on the rafters using rope and left to cool overnight. This is a common practice called ‘cooling’. Cooling the carcass helps prevent muscle fibers from tightening, which might make the meat tough and chewy. It’s recommended to let the cow age for 10-14 days for optimal tenderness and flavor, but with the conference right around the corner we didn’t have the time.
The next morning we disassembled the basic parts. We sectioned off cuts like lomo (loin), aguja (chuck roast), and the ribs.
It’s great to practice a skill like this. At first, it’s daunting and foreign. Especially if you don’t come from a ranching background (aka me) . The second/third/fourth time around, when you know what to expect, you can begin focusing more on technique and efficiency.
Since we were sticking to simple cuts, all the meat from the legs of the cow were imprecisely removed and ground up. This was a similar process to last year.
Here is some footage from November, 2024:
We used a homemade Adobo seasoning, which is a mix of garlic, paprika, oregano, and cumin. They go heavy on the oregano here in Uruguay. Half of the meat was left as ground beef and the other half we made into sausages with the intestine casing.
Because the cow was a bit leaner this year we didn’t make sausages, but experimented with grinding liver and heart into the ground beef instead. There are lots of nutrients in the organs, but just like a mango or banana peel, it’s usually foregone because of the flavor. For this reason we left half of the ground meat un-organed.
The rest was mainly bagging and labelling. The bones will be slow cooked to make broth and the rest of the meat was frozen for later.
Hopefully the conference attendee’s will be able to taste the difference…