Rosie and The Operator love to try the local food when we are on holiday and Argentina didn’t disappoint! It is a meat lovers paradise here and that suits us just fine! Along the way we discovered many other treats and local food traditions. Here is a small list of the things we enjoyed the most and….some of the things we will skip next time we are town.
EMPANADAS – so delicious! The Argentine version of a Kiwi pie. Baked Pastry stuffed with various fillings – Rosie’s favourite…the most popular, savory mince. On the menu in nearly every restaurant and available warm and ready to go from the bakers or, take them home and warm them up later yourself.
PARILLA – The whole City Of Buenos Aires smells like charcoal and cooking meat. TRUE! A Parilla is a barbecue and is a way of life in Argentina. It is the main traditional way of cooking all meat. Large pieces of meat….dried and aged to perfection.
The most popular lunch to order is an Asado – a mixed BBQ where you get multiple cuts of different meat, sausage and offal served on a spitting mini grill with coals underneath directly to your table. Veges are an afterthought here and have to be ordered separately…if at all. Rosie and The Operator love it…except the grilled intestines…they taste like pork crackle but gritty….hmmm….said The Operator….a reflection of what the beast has eaten….
CHORIPAN – Delicious street food – chorizo sausage encased in a fresh white bread bun normally slathered in fresh, zingy chimchurri sauce. Choripan is cooked on a charcoal Parilla (BBQ). The chorizo sausage is not like the more dry, cured ones we get at home from Europe but starts life as a wet pork sausage with beautiful chorizo spices. The sausage is split in half during cooking to ensure the inside is cooked and the meat charred and smoky. The grill above has skewers of sausages…when nearly ready they cut the sausage in half and bbq either side before serving. Totally yummo, a great food on the go and so cheap for $3.00NZD
Chimchurri Sauce – Rosie has the recipe for a delicious version of this sauce. It is scrummy on all meat, plus chorizo sausages and everyone has their own version of it! Tweek it to your taste by adding more or less of any ingredient….and the secret is all about the wait time….before adding the final ingredient. Rosie will be making this sauce every time she eats steak! Here is the recipee below if you want to give it a try…you wont regret it!
PROVOLETA – provolone cheese cooked in a cast iron skillet on the inside oven area of the BBQ until the edges bubble, and the smokiness of the charcoal has infused it – this one has a figgy topping…served with crusty bread.
YERBA MATE – (mah-te) Everyone seems to be sipping this tea in Argentina….I mean everyone, it is after all the national drink. It’s taste is a combination of burnt coffee and green tea…..it is a powdery/stalky combo and is scooped straight into your gourd shaped cup and filled with hot water….never boiling.
You sip it through a special metal straw called a bombilla………which has a sieve on the end to stop you sucking up the debris.
People drink it everywhere and actually have portable mate bags which they pack their cup and ingredients in plus a thermos of hot water. Often on the streets or on park benches you will see people pulling out their thermos to recharge their mate. The sweetest thing is teenage girls holding their mating cup and sipping away and their young boyfriend carrying the thermos. In our apartments there were always mate cups, bombillas and a thermos. Rosie is not exchanging her flat white for this beverage anytime soon….it is very bitter and an acquired taste.
WARM WHITES, COLD REDS – it’s odd, it’s been that way 50:50 on our wine service, the red cold and the white warm with a little bucket of ice given to us….not sure if its to add to my white wine to make it cold or to keep the already cold red cold. Check out the the condensation line on The Operators red wine glass. Bizarre.
ALFAJORES – a biscuit similar to shortbread. Soft in texture and normally sandwiched together with a sweet filling. Rosie likes these…from our baker they were palm sized with a layer of dulce de leche in between.
DULCE DE LECHE – Sweet dishes dont really seem to be a thing here…but this is the sweetest of the sweet. Dulche de Leche is made from caramelised condensed milk, it is used in coffees, as biscuit fillers, over ice cream and pretty much anywhere where we would use cream….this is a crepe full of dulce de leche sticky goodness.
Well folks, that’s a wrap from us in Argentina. We had a blast here in Buenos Aires and thoroughly enjoyed our two weeks in the city and around. Till out next travels. Thanks for letting Rosie and The Operator share their travels with you.
