As many of you know, I have returned to the land that sparked my love and interest in the wonderful world of empanadas. I just finished my MBA and have a couple of months off before I start working, so I decided to take a trip down to the Southern Hemisphere to visit the family I lived with during my year abroad and to learn more about the art of empanadas. I apologize in advance that this post will not include pictures, but I neglected to bring my camera cord with me to Buenos Aires, and will not be uploading the pics until I return on April 1.
So, since I have been here a little over a week now and it has been quite a while since I last posted, I thought I would give all of you eager followers an update on the goings on of my empanada adventure. My hiatus over the past couple of months is due in large part to me finishing up my MBA and playing a large role in the GW Business School Follies production. That is all over now, and I am down in BsAs concentrating on what I can put in my next pocket.
I arrived in BsAs Friday March 12, three and a half years since I left the city after a year of studying abroad here. My host "dad" picked me up from the airport and took me back to the apartment, where they had fresh empanadas waiting for me. They know that I am very interested in empanadas, so it was very thoughtful of them to welcome me with these delightful little pockets of magic. They had ordered a variety of empanadas from a local empanaderia called La Pasceña. When I was living here we ordered from there quite often. They make a very interesting, dense dough, and very traditional delicious fillings. Each flavor empanada comes in a different shape and when you order them they come with a key that helps you identify which empanada is which flavor. I immediatly picked up a carne picante empanada to see if anything had changed since I left. As I remembered, there is very little spicy food to be had in Buenos Aires, and a carne picante empanada solely signified a carne empanada with a few extra spices in it. You can imagine how surprised I was when I had to ask for a glass of water because of the heat packed into the carne picante empanada. The Argentines had learned something over the past three and a half years, and I was pretty excited about it.
After finishing my spicy pocket I moved onto an empanada de verduras, or spinach empanada. I have blogged before about my own spinach empanadas, but these were a but different. They definitely dont use as much onion as I do, nor do they add in as much nutmeg. I am not going to lie, I prefer the flavors I add into mine, however, the dough La Pasceña uses really complemented the lightness of their spinach filling. I must learn the recipe!
Although I was really filling up, and jetlag was setting in, I decided to try one more pocket. They suggested I try one that was filled with mozzarella cheese and a sort of tomato mixture, almost like a pico de gallo, sans spice of course. It was quite delightful. Packed with many italian flavors, sort of like a cheesy bruschetta pocket if you will. I will definitely be replicating this one upon my return to springtime in DC, as I know it will be a great addition to the many dinner parties I plan on having this Spring.
The next day I woke up in Sunny BsAs excited to take on the day. Well, I did sleep in until about 11, but when I woke up, I was excited about being there! After washing the jetlag off of me, I spent a few hours playing barbie and princess with Olivia, my host parents', Luciana and Alejandro, 3 year old daughter. When I left Buenos Airres, Luciana and Alejandro were a newlywed couple. Upon my return they are now parents to an adorable 3 year old girl, Olivia, and 4 month old boy, Jeronimo. After a few hours of playing with Olivia, we all ate lunch. Luciana fixed a delicious bowl of polenta with tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese. A dish I never make at home, but was simple and delicious! That afternoon, they all headed out to their country house and I stayed behind as a friend was coming into town.
That evening, at about 8 I headed over to el centro to meet Marie Campbell at her hotel as I had made dinner reservations at a new restaurant in town. Per the suggestion of a wonderful food writer I had met on my flight over here, I made us a reservation at Standard in Palermo Hollywood. Marie, her friend and I all headed over from their hotel to Palermo. We were a bit early so we decided to sit at the bar and have a cocktail before dinner. The restaurant is quite small, but very clean and simple. The walls are light wood paneled and the tables are set with simple white table cloths. As we sat at the small 5 person bar we perused the wonderful cocktail menu. I was set on this passion fruit vodka concoction and Marie and her friend both ordered some sort of caipirinha. Each drink was bursting with flavor, and went down like juice!
After lifting our spirits a bit we headed over to our table. Our waiter immediately brought us some empanaditas. They were stuffed with a wonderful gooey cheese, tomato and some spice I had never heard of, but really got your tongue going if you know what I mean. As we savored the little mini pockets we eyed the menu, discussing eagerly what dish each of us was going to order. Marie selected the 12 hour cooked ribs, her friend selected a seafood risotto dish and I was set on lamb with a mustard sauce. The waiter looked surprised as we placed our orders, but we didnt make much of it. Then, as our food came out, we realized why our camarero was so in awe of our menu selections. No one had informed us that the dishes were served family style and were intended to be shared. Each one of our dishes could have served 4 people easy. We did as best we could, but packed up most fo our meals in a doggy bag for me to bring back to the family's apartment.
Despite our gigantic entrees we could not forgo dessert. Since we all had such heavy dishes, we picked a lighter dessert, a dessert our waiter suggested. It was called something like a tropical island. It was like a light meringue with a delicious tropical caramel sauce all over it. There definitely was not any left to take home in a doggy bag....
The next day the three of us met up at the antique fair in San Telmo. This is most definitely my favorite outdoors market in BsAs. We wandered around the booths for a couple of hours and then went and had a light lunch on the terrace of one of the restaurants in the plaza. After lunch we did a little more shopping and then said our goodbyes as they had to get ready to go back to the states.
Moving into the rest of the week, I have had some great experiences I would like to highlight. Most of my time has been spent wandering around, getting reacquainted with the city and seeing all that there is to see. One of my main objectives here of course is to research empanadas. After doing some research I decided to venture over to a place called La Morada in recoleta. I had been there once during my year here and remember that they had some of the best pockets in town. I walked into the small little empanada shop, filled with only 5 or six tables. It was later in the afternoon, so there were only a few people sitting inside, but calls continued to stream in for orders the entire time I was there. After looking over the simple paper menu I elected to try three types, carne suave (very traditional), choclo (corn), and mozzarella, panceta and dried plum. I was most excited about the last one, as it is very unique and seemed to be the perfect mix of sweet and savory. As they arrived at my table I immediately noticed the difference between these pockets and those I had on my first day here. They were definitely baked, but the dough appeared to be dry. When I bake them at home, I usually put an egg wash on them, but they clearly did not put anything on the dough before putting them in the oven. Although the dough appeared dry, it was cooked to perfection, Each bite of all three types of pockets was absolutely divine, a little pocket from above. The best of all three, as expected was the sweet and savory one. The panceta and dried plum came together in the oozing mozzarella to create a symphony of flavors. I will definitely be trying this one at home, and if you are ever in BsAs, go to La Morada for a wonderful empanada experience.
Later on in the week, I decided to sign up for a culinary tour. After researching cooking classes in BsAs, this tour managed to pop up on about every search, so I figured I would give it a go. It is called Teresita's culinary tour, and takes place about an hour outside of the city in a town called Adrogue. I had never been to, nor heard of this town, but the reviews of this tour seemed very positive and the website is very well done, so I figured I would give it a go. I headed over to el centro to catch the bus by the Obelesik at about 9:30 am. I arrived in Adrogue about an hour later and walked over through tree covered streets to Teresita's house. I arrived to her cottage where she and her husband greeted me. They asked me to wait out back as they finished preparing things. I headed through her kitchen into the back yard, which was a magical garden filled with orchids and birds. I felt like I was in Alice in Wonderland. I chatted with a nice French woman who was coming along at the tour as we waited for the others. Slowly but surely all of the other participants arrived, a couple from Sweden, a mother and son from England, and three couples from the states.
Once we had all arrived we headed over to the outdoor market, which apparently takes place every Friday. Teresita explained every vegetable and fruit we saw, what it is, what its used for, where it comes from. She also explained the different meats and fish that were at the market. Everything looked wonderfully fresh and it was hard to resist buying up everything. In the end I had controlled myself and only purchased a small packet of home made pizza spices and a chimichurri spice mix from an old Bolivian woman.
After the market we walked into the town bakery. Controlling myself in the outdoor market was nothing compared to the will power exerted in the bakery. Fresh baked goods of all sorts filled the store. very display case and counter was filled with an airy wonderful baked concoction. Teresita showed us all of the very traditional pastries in the shop and talked about when they are usually eaten (I could have eaten them all day everyday!). We then watched a man make traditional miga sandwiches. These are very simple snack sandwiches, which are made out of a ginormous piece of white bread (without the crust) some mayo, a layer of ham, another layer of bread, a layer of cheese and then topped with another piece of bread. They then take a large wooden block to press it down and cut it into squares. I guess these are their twist on tea sandwiches.
From the baker we headed to the butcher. Teresita went over every cut of meat in the store. They had everything, and the meat looked soooooo good! The butcher brought out a half a cow and we got to see where everything is cut from. Some people might be grossed out by all of this...but to tell you the truth, it just made me hungry! We ended our walking tour at a Delicatessen, where we saw traditional Argentina food already prepared and ready to take home. I was happy that this was the last stop before heading back to Teresita's because my mouth was definitely starting to water at the site and smell of all of the wonderful prepared dishes.
After the tour we went back to Teresita's to prepare some traditional empanadas and enjoy a traditional lunch with some wonderful Argentine wine. Because this was a tour covering many different types of food, and because Teresita teaches a separate empanada class, she had made the meat filling in advance. What Teresita taught us was to make the dough and how to fill the empanadas. I was very excited as I make filling all the time, but rarely make my own dough, and I was very interested in learning how to roll the outside of the dough to close the empanadas since I always just seal them up with a fork. I volunteered to mix the dough, and everyone was fine with that since they all knew about my passion for empanadas. The recipe was quite simple, flour, saltwater and the key ingredient, lard. You just mix those things together and kneed a ball of dough. Then you make mini golf size balls and roll them out into super thin circles.
As Teresita showed us how to fill and close the empanadas she taught us something very important, "There is nothing worse than an empty empanada." I could not have put it better myself. I was surprised how easy it was to roll the edges of the dough to shut them, and they look so beautiful. Once we were finished filling all of the dough, Teresita lined them up on a pan to put them in the oven. Much like the pockets at La Morada, she did not put any sort of wash on them. She explained that it is very traditional to have dry dough. She also told us that it is important to have the oven at a high temperature and keep the empanadas in the oven for as little time as possible (about 10 minutes).
While the empanadas baked up we all headed out back to the beautiful table set up in the garden. The sommelier poured us sparkling wine from the Patagonia region as we had our first appetizer, a silver fish marinated in white wine and vinegar on home made crostinis. After finishing the light yet vibrant crostinis and a couple of glasses of sparkling wine, we moved onto the first course. Teresita brought out a tray of piping hot empanadas that had just come out of the oven. As she served us our own little pocket creations, the sommelier poured us a lovely floral Torrontes from Salta. The empanadas were to die for. The filling was perfectly seasoned, and the dough was nice and thin yet held the whole thing together. Once we gobbled up the empandas we were served little pots of humita, a corn and pepper mixture with gooey cheese on the bottom. This was accompanied by a second glass of the Torrontes. Although we were all well on our way to full, we were then served the main course, tournedo (a cut of meat) in a Malbec reduction, with stuffed squash and crispy fried Yucca. This was paired with a Malbec from Mendoza. The meat was cooked to perfection and the squash was filled with a wonderful cheese and vegetable mixture that complemented the steak quite well. We could barely put anything else in us, but there was still dessert and a dessert wine to be had. For dessert we had a a roasted peach with cardamom and vanilla ice cream, served with a sweet Torrontes wine. I could not have been happier. The dessert was a perfect way to end the day.
The tour was extremely informative and so much fun. I had some great food and made some wonderful new friends. There are more stories to be told about my trip, but I will update you on those later. Now it is time to go create some new memories out in this wonderful city and find some new tasty empanadas to try! Hasta luego!
