From Argentina With Love

Salsa Golf--'Golf Sauce'

Last year I attended a taping of the show 'Food Network Challenge,' famous for bringing you princess cakes and models of the Brooklyn Bridge constructed from cornflakes.  Four chefs were challenged to beat the clock to create dishes, that were tasted by three chef-judges, to ultimately win a prize of $10,000.  Three of the chefs had stations piled high with fresh fruits and vegetables, while the other (Sean Brock, who won) had a clean station that looked more like a lab than a kitchen.  He was using what the judges declared was the wave of the future:  Molecular Gastronomy. 

And while famous chefs like Grant Achatz of Alinea and Ferran Adria of El Bulli may experiment with dishes like bacon slices with butterscotch and apple, the concept of using chemistry to make tasty food has been around at least since the invention of Salsa Golf.

Salsa Criolla--Creole-Style Relish

'Fusion' is a hip term these days, as the globe seems to be getting smaller and information is constantly shared, creating nonstop connectivity.  Cultures are blending and melding at an amazing speed.  In cuisine, that has translated into a lot of 'East meets West'--merging Asian flavors with European techniques, or Fusion.

But just for just a moment, I'd like you to step into my time-machine and join me about 350 years ago.  The world was much bigger then.  Forget the internet, heck, cars and telephones aren't even down the pike for another 200 years or so.  Horse and cart, if you can afford it, that's more like it.  A voyage on a ship from Spain (if you survive) to the New World may take a year.  The letter telling your mother that you arrived and are alive (assuming either one of you can read or write) will take another year.

Ñoquis de Batata y Albahaca--Sweet Potato and Basil Gnocchi

It's nearing the the end of the month again, and you know what that means in Argentina--time to turn your kitchen into a ñoqui-making factory!  If you haven't yet been charmed by Argentineans way of eating gnocchi every month, this might be your chance to embrace the 'Ñoquis del 29' tradition, because the gnocchi are out of this world--sweet potato and ricotta gnocchi with chopped fresh basil. 

Springtime Hearts of Palm Salad--Ensalada de Palmitos de Primavera

 

Spring has sprung, and salads are back on the table.  Our bodies naturally follow a lighter diet, cleaning out our systems from winter's heartier stick-to-your-ribs meals.  This salad combines the unique flavors of its components--a typically Argentinean arrangement--a composed design, a juxtaposition of tastes.

The salad contains lettuce as a base, but adds delicate slices of hard-boiled egg, wedges of red tomato, chopped celery ribs, glistening sliced hearts of palm, and topped off with thick chunks of beets.

Many of these vegetables are considered super-foods--those foods that pack an extra punch to help the body detoxify--so this salad is the perfect companion alongside a steak, or for lunch on a lighten-up day.

Easy to make, fun to arrange.  Top it with a basic vinagrette, and serve.

Ensalada de Palmitos

Heart of Palm Salad

1 head of lettuce, leaves washed an torn (I used green-leaf lettuce here)

1 tomato, sliced into wedges

1 rib of celery, sliced into pieces cross-wise

1 can hearts of palm, drained

1 can cut or sliced beets, drained

1 hard-boiled egg, shelled and sliced

salt, to taste

pepper, to taste

Vinagrette Dressing:

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

1 tablespoon red-wine vinegar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1/4 teaspoon salt (or more to taste)

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/4 cup olive oil

Directions:

Hard boil the egg before anything else.  To make the dressing, combine all the ingredients in a jar with a tight-fitting lid and shake to combine.  In the bowl of your choice, place the lettuce.  Add about half of the dressing and toss until the lettuce leaves are klightly coated.   Layer the egg slices, then a ring of celery slices, a ring of hearts of palm slices, finishing with the beets in the center.  Add the tomatoes fanning around the beets. 

More photos are available on my flickr photostream, From Argentina With Love.

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Relevant posts:  Beet and Apple Salad, Asado Argentino

Doña Maruca

 

Driving out of Bowen on Avenida Sarmiento , the outskirts of town give way to rows of crops, tall alamos trees gridding off farm boundaries.  And as you motor along, if you're not paying attention, you'll miss the vintage hubcap lashed to the fence of one of the farms, hand-painted with black lettering that reads 'DOÑA MARUCA'.

Doña Maruca (pictured above with her husband) is like some Argentinean Martha Stewart, making jams and preserves, canning, making sauces.  On Saturdays she and a few others set up tables in the main square in General Alvear and sell their goodies to tourists, usually from Buenos Aires, who are passing though for a country weekend.

But Doña Maruca infuses what she does with love and creativity, adding her own hand into her work.  So she has the standard canned peaches in syrup, pickled eggplant, olives and whole tomatoes, apricot  jam and other typical things from that region.  But she also makes grapes in grappa, figs in syrup, homemade alfajores and baked apple cake, juices, with flavors like grape and peach, and quince paste made from scratch, with little walnuts nestled inside.  Oh, and homemade chimmichurri, re-bottled in an old Coca-Cola bottle, and re-sealed:

Doña Maruca also famously made a prize-winning squash into jam.  Like many agricultural communities, the area around Bowen and Alvear had a contest to find the largest vegetables.  Evidently, there was one butternut squash that was exceptional, and took the prize.  After all the prize-winning excitement had passed, the farmer who grew it didn't quite no what to do with all that squash.  So Doña Maruca offered to take it off his hands, and made her prize-winning squash jam.

I guess her philosophy can be summed up by saying when life hands you giant squash, make squash jam.  She is a true regional treasure.  One of those that if you're not careful, you might just miss.

Dulce de Zapallo

Squash Jam

Of course, this is a recipe I adapted.  Doña Maruca's recipes are top secret!

2 lbs. butternut squash, seeded, peeled and cut into smallish pieces

1 lb. sugar

2 cups (or more, as needed) of water

Place the squash in a medium-sized saucepan and just cover squash with water.  Bring to a boil.  Boil until the squash has become very soft, stirring frequently.  Drain the water.  In another saucepan, bring the 2 cups of water and sugar to a boil, stirring together.  The sugar and water will become thick.  Add in the squash, mashing the squash pieces to the texture desired.  (It shouldn't be too chunky or too fine.)  Cook, stirring together the squash and sugar and water, until you get a thick, jelly like substance, and most of the water has evaporated.  Take care not to heat too high, you don't want scalded or burned squash.  Put into jars, and can according to manufacturer's instructions, or put into jars and refrigerate to be consumed within 2 weeks.  Enjoy spread on toast for breakfast or crackers with a cheese course.