When we talk about Argentine cooking on this blog, we often make the point that there isn’t a lot of seasoning in play in many of the recipes we share.
Often, the only spice at work in these dishes is the most basic and essential one there is: salt.
Today, we’re going to look at a new element of Argentine cooking called salmuera. Salmuera simply means “brine,” or a highly-concentrated solution of salt in water. Unlike regular salt, this brine won’t toughen your meats.
Compared to sausage, steaks and chicken, fish can seem like a minor league player trying to compete against a team of all-stars.
And yes, flounder cooked in a pan in your kitchen is no match for a nice thick steak at a backyard barbecue. But put fish on your Gaucho Grill, and all bets are off. Grilling brings out the best in fish. Here are a few tips to get started.
We got our company’s name from the gauchos, rough-and-tumble Argentinian cattlemen who cooked their meat on makeshift grills. And while we weren’t on hand for those long-ago Latin barbecue celebrations, we’d say it’s a safe bet the gauchos didn’t head out to Home Depot to buy charcoal. They cooked over wood.
They had the right idea. Wood smoke gives your food an amazing flavor, but it’s also something of a challenge, writes Oliver Schwaner-Albright in The New York Times.
“Grilling over a wood fire is as much a sport as an art — it’s more instinctive than cooking with a gas grill, more nuanced than cooking with charcoal, and more athletic than both.”
If you think this is something you’re ready to tackle, here are some rules to follow for your next Latin barbecue:
Regardless of whether you’ve ever visited Argentina, there’s a good chance you’re nevertheless aware of just how significant a role the consumption of meat plays in the country’s culinary culture. What you may not be familiar with, however, is the enormous popularity of a particularly Argentine style of barbecuing.
Known as an asado, it’s an hours-long outdoor cookout that isn’t entirely unlike an American barbecue experience. Still, there are several significant differences, not the least of which is the food and drink itself. At an asado meal, you can expect to enjoy high-quality cuts of meat ranging from sirloin and flank steaks to a succulent rack of ribs. Sausage, chicken, and even carefully prepared appetizers known as achuras may also make an appearance.
Another significant difference between the American-style barbecues you and I are used to and an asado cookout is the beverage of choice. Cans of beer and pitchers of sweet iced tea aren’t generally a part of an Argentine barbecue. Instead, you can expect to encounter red wine—and lots of it—in varying degrees of quality.
If you’d like to host a genuine asado meal of your own, keep reading to learn which wines you’ll want to pair with which meats.
The cook out is winding down. Your asado grill is cooling, guests have moved onto drinks and desserts, and you’re thinking about leftovers.
Specifically, the leftover beef. Cooking beef on an asado grill can give you steaks like nothing else you’ve tasted, but that doesn’t mean your leftovers need to be a letdown.
Here are a few Argentine-tinged beef dishes that you can make with whatever beef is leftover from your next cookout.
We’ve designed our Argentine grills to give you perfectly cooked cuts of meat. What you do with that meat after it leaves the grill is up to you. The way you cut a steak after it’s cooked plays as much of a role in your meal as the grilling process.
When you’ve taken the time to grill a nice piece of beef on your parrilla, you want to make sure that you take the proper steps to serve it correctly. Here are a meat cutting techniques and tips that will allow you to get the most out of your next meal.
In our last blog post, we talked about the mystery of where chimichurri got its name, as well as some of the misconceptions about this sauce.
(For example, it’s not “Argentinian ketchup.”)
There seems to be some debate online about whether chimichurri should only be used as a condiment, or can also function as an Argentine grilling marinade.
“While some recipes for chimichurri use it as a sauce, using it as a marinade opens up new flavors and tenderizes less tender cuts of meat,” writes Kathie Smith of The Blade. “In order to tenderize, a marinade must contain acidic ingredients such as lemon juice, yogurt, wine, or vinegar, or a natural tenderizing enzyme found in fresh papaya, ginger, pineapple, and figs, according to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.”
So today we’re going to talk about marinades, by offering two different recipes for a marinade you can make the next time you’re ready to grill.
Over the past few months, we’ve been using this blog to teach readers their way around the world of Argentinian grilling. And now that you can walk the walk, we want you to be able to talk the talk, so to speak. That’s why we’ve put together this guide to Argentinean grilling terminology. The next time you host a cookout, you can impress your guests with your food and your lingo.
Ribs are a staple of the barbecue menu, no matter the hemisphere in which you find yourself dining.
But the way we prepare ribs in the U.S. and the way they’re made in a country like Argentina are two very different things.
When we make ribs here in America, we tend to cook them using a slow roast and a lot of basting.
“Asado” is a term used in Argentina and other South American countries that means “barbecue,” but it doesn’t quite describe the way you do your standard outdoor grilling.
This is meat cooked over coals or wood embers, a system developed by Argentinian gauchos who needed to grill their food out on the grasslands.
It’s not a cooking method for everyone, but if you think you’re ready to tackle it, here are a few Argentine style grilling tips from Manuel Debandi, chef at the Terrazas de Los Andes winery
