Argentina tastes great

Wersja polska

By far I've always travelled to Argentina during European winter, so you may think that the thing that I'm the most excited about is nice, sunny weather. Well that too, but everytime when I get my tickets my thoughts gets immediately possessed by one thing- what am I going to eat there this time. 

Beef, dulce de leche, ice cream, pork, pastas, blood sausages, sea food, sweets, fruits, sausages, vegetables, more dulce de leche, fishes, more beef... the list is long and you may easily fill one month stay with it. As Argentinans love to eat I can always find there a good company to share a meal. Forget the word 'diet' when you go there. No one cares about diet. Everyone eats whatever they want and whenever they want it and no stupid diet is going to stop them from it. Following that amazing attitude I have also enjoyed lots of great food there and it made me soooo happy! 

Argentinian cuisine is strongly influenced by Italian and Spanish culinary tradition. Waves of immigrants brought to Argentina the best of their cuisines. With time, the original recipes were changed and developed by Argentinans, giving them another character and making them different from the one of the country of origin. Let's take a look at pastry. Argentinan pastry is very simmilar to Italian, but Argentinans add to almost every type of it a big dollop of dulce de leche. Therefore, despite of some simmilarities, Argentinan cuisine has developed its own tastes which can be tried only there. 

But let's come back to dulce de leche, which is one of the best thing in Argentinian cuisine. Dulce de leche is caramel-like product, made by slowly heating milk and sugar together as long as it reaches the desired consistency. One short advice- don't you ever say that dulce de leche is actually a caramel, it's an offence for Argentinians. After eating many types of dulce de leche I can also tell you it's true- dulce de leche is not a caramel. It's way more creamy, not that sweet, a bit more liquid than caramel. Well, it's just perfect and tastes like heaven. You can buy it in each grocery, there are many types, and there are discussions which one is actually the best. You can eat it anytime and any way you want. Obviously, the best way is to eat it sraight from jar with a spoon. It's fascinating how one small spoon of dulce de leche can make you actually a happier person. But you can try it also with toasts, bananas, pancakes or cakes. The most famous sweets filled with dulce de leche are alfajores- a sandwich cookie, with dulce de leche filling, coated with chocolate. They are fantastic. The best alfajores are the one produced by famous Argentinian company, Havanna (also available online or e.g. in Spain in Havanna shops).

Facturas with dulce de leche

Taking about pastry- it is not only dulce de leche which makes it taste sooo great that you can't stop eating them. Argentinans pastry, called facturas, is prepared with a lot of butter. When you get into any bakery in Argentina, you feel very strong smell of butter. Everyone knows, that the more butter you add, the better your pastry will be. While eating Argentinian medialunas, croissant-like pastry, you can squeeze them a bit to see how they actually leak a bit of butter out. This make them so juicy and soft. Surrounded by amazing, strong smell of butter you get to choose between many different types of facturas, that not only smell good but also have so called pinta- they just look super tasty. 

Some types of facturas-  medialunas, palmeritas and orange and lemon polvorones

Argentnians enjoy facturas mostly during so-called merienda, an afternoon break during which you have some mate or coffee with pastry. During weekends, when you usually have more time to enjoy slow breakfast, you can go to some nice cafeteria and get facturas with coffee. I love this small rituals so we have enjoyed many of them. 

Merienda at El Condor

Breakfast at Piazza

Dulce de leche, the queen of Argentinian cuisine, may be found also in many flavours of ice cream. I love Italian ice cream and I always thought that they are the best, but I must have changed my ranking and make Argentninan ice cream the absolute winner. I don't know how many times during our stay we went to my favourite ice-cream place: Lucciano's. 

Already the interior of this place is encouraging you to get in. 

Ice cream sticks decoration and interior at Lucciano's

The ice cream there is amazing. Really creamy, intensive taste, big varation of flavours, huge portions- they have everything what you want from good ice cream. 

You can choose between many milky and fruity flavors, they also have sorbets. But obviously, for all Argentinans the best flavors are those with dulce de leche. There is even a flavor called dulce de leche con dulce de leche. Dulce de leche  w i t h  dulce de leche. An explosion of happines. 

Ok, let's leave this neverending sweetness for a while and balance it with some other taste. Finally it's time for- last but not least- famous Argentinan beef. Even if you haven't heard too much of Argentina, I'm quite sure you've already heard about its well-known beef. And trust me, it's like that for a reason. Nowhere else in the world I've tried beef which was so soft and juicy, so full of flavour, even though it is prepared only with salt and water. 

The whole ritual of preparing beef is called asado. Basically you barbecue big parts of beef like vacío- flank steak or costillar- ribs or many others, on special huge barbecue called parilla. Most of Argentinans have parrilas in their houses, in block of flats usually you can find common parilla on the roof balcony or in the special room on the top of the building. To prepare beef in the way that makes it so soft and juicy, you need to put it on quite small fire or hot coals and barbecue it for quite a long time (3-4 hours). That's why usually to make asado you meet with your friends or family and you drink some mate or wine while waiting for meet to be done. Don't try to rush the whole process- it will make beef hard and dry. 

Asado- beginning, pieces of  vacío and costillar

Argentinians literally eat each part of beef you can imagine. Intestines- chinchulines, brain- seso, kidneys- riñones or anything else that comes to your mind- you can most probably find it on Argentinian asado. At the beginning I was not very convinced to try them all, but I did and I'm proud of it cause they taste soooo good!! 

Asado- final result

Ok, now I got hungry because of all these tasty memories. So excuse me, I think I'm gonna have one more spoon of dulce de leche to make my day better :)