¡Holá! ...from Argentina

 

 Foodie Friday~Argentina
Don't cry for me, Argentina....

Okay, sorry- that was a cheesy way to start this post. It was Evie's turn this week and she picked the South American country of Argentina. Some things we talked about and researched while looking up recipes were Argentina's vast size and diverse geographical makeup; jungles, desserts, mountains, and glaciers. It is the second largest country in South America and has had a very interesting political history. Our menu consisted of Locro, Argentine grilled tri-tip, medialuna with homemade dulce de leche, and Argentine tiramisu. Argentina's food has a definite Italian influence along with other cultures.

My husband and 8 year old focused on the Argentine Tiramisu first so it could chill and set in the fridge. The thing that separates this from Italian Tiramisu is that it is made with dulce de leche cream (a caramel sauce) and sponge cake instead of lady fingers. We wanted to have pretty individual circular ones so in came the creativity. When we don't own the right kind of utensils for a dish, it can get interesting. The dishes usually flop with great sadness or it turns out great and our heads grow in size... These came out beautifully. My husband used mugs and lined them with wax paper. Layering twice the dulce de leche and mascarpone filling, between three layers of the cake poured with coffee. Then right before dinner, they slid them out, peeled off the wax paper and dusted with cocoa and added chocolate shavings. I will probably have to add our recipe with a later post because we really morphed the one found on Pinterest. 

 

Okay, here's the other thing we started right away; the dulce de leche. We found a recipe for real dulce de leche which only consists of sweetened condensed milk and kosher salt. You cook it for four hours though. You combine your ingredients in a pie pan and then put the pie pan in a water bath in a 400 degree oven. You stir your cream once every hour for the four hours. Simple, right? Just time consuming. I was excited to make our very own "from scratch" dulce de leche. Then we went to the store, and in the "Mexican" aisle they had the real Nestlé sweetened condensed milk and right next to it- a can of dulce de leche cream already made. My husband was like, "Cool.  Less work."

But I really wanted to make it from scratch because we could. So we compromised and bought one can of "dulce de leche" cream that we used in the Tiramisu recipe and one can of the regular Nestlé sweetened condensed milk to make our own cream, and we used that as the spread for the medialunas. It was neat to see the difference between the four hour process and the already made can. They tasted the same but the consistency was different. Our homemade one was grainier and slightly thicker and the canned one was smoother and had a consistency like pudding. Overall, it worked out perfect because ours was best as a spread and I think the smoother one was more easily mixed with the mascarpone for the Tiramisu. 

Now it was time to focus on part of the main course- Locro, which is a kind of stew... The recipe we chose to follow had pancetta, chorizo, osso buco (beef shanks), butternut squash, yams, tomato, onion, garlic, and some seasonings. It turned out wonderful; a nice little spicy kick and filling. It would make a great fall stew simmering all afternoon....

 We usually have each of the 'olders' be a 'point-person' on one dish, with everyone  pitching in to help them. My husband said, "Gabe's going to learn to grill today.  He needs to learn how to grill right." So they disappeared to the backyard with their root beers and tri-tip. And was it a successful lesson? Do you see the color of that meat?! It tasted ten times better than it looks even! Amazing. 

While the boys grilled outside, we girls finished up the medialunas.

 Ahh...that brings me to my favorite dish. In our research, we discovered that breakfast is not a large meal- it usually consists of coffee and a medialunas from a local bakery. Medialunas are an Argentine croissant. They are common and found at most little bakeries. It's what you pick up and take to a friend's house to visit and chat with a nice coffee and a medialuna or three. Or enjoy outside the bakery with a good book while chatting with all who pass by. They are a crescent moon (hence, the name, I'm sure) pastry that is light and sweet. Not as flaky as any croissant I've ever had but a sweeter taste with a light fluffy texture. There are typically two different kinds of medialunas. One made with lard and more savory, and the other made with butter (a lot of butter) and sweeter. Most of the recipes I found to be authentic should be started the day before and requires a process of preparing the butter which consists of putting the butter between sheets of plastic wrap and beating it with a rolling pin.

Then putting that thin slab of butter on the dough and folding it in thirds on top of the butter. Chilling for three hours, rolling and refolding every hour. Since Evie didn't decide on this dish til Thursday night and we didn't get to the store til noon on Friday, we picked a quicker recipe. I'm not sure how authentic it is but it did come from a woman's blog who's Argentinian so there's that for authentic. And since it was the most amazing little thing I tasted, I don't really care how "authentic" it was. Literally melts in your mouth while it's still warm and then we spread that homemade dulce de leche on it- I'm not kidding you- A-mazing. While the boys grilled, we rolled up our medialunas and brushed them with the almibar, a syrup made by heating water and sugar. That way, they'd be warm and ready by the time the steak was done. The Tiramisu was done and had been chilling in the fridge for four hours and the Locro simmering for a couple hours on the stove. It was probably one of our top favorite Foodie Friday meals ever. Everything was delicious and we ate way too much.
One thing we learned this week? We are dying to travel to Argentina. It looks beautiful and from what we gather, the food's amazing. I want to sit in front of a little bakery, enjoying a medialuna. And soaking up a beautiful and very rich culture. Someday....