Dulce de leche - Milk jam

The Dulce de Leche (milk jam) is the most popular and tradicional of all preserve in Argentina. You can find it as filling in almost every pastries, cakes, sweets and other products.

History of Dulce de Leche
In 1829 in the providence of Cañuelas in Buenos Aires, the General Lavalle and the General Manuel de Rosas came together in order to make a treaty. The General Lavalle arrived very tired at General Rosas's camp. Manuel de Rosas wasn't in the camp at the moment so Lavalle took a nap on Rosas's tent. While he was sleeping, a serving woman was preparing "la lechada" for the camp. The "lechada" is prepared by heating sugar and milk. The woman went to speak with General Rosas in his tent, but when she entered she discovered the enemy. She didn't know about the treaty the two generals were about to make, so she ran to find soldiers. General Rosas arrived moments before the soldiers, and stopped them from waking General Lavalle. In the chaos, the woman forgot about the lechada she left and when she checked it, she noticed that it had become a dark brown jelly substance. It is said that a very hungry soldier ate the jelly and then dulce de leche was born.


Recipe
Ingredients:
1 quart milk, preferably whole, organic and as fresh as possible1 cup granulated sugar1 vanilla bean1/2 teaspoon baking soda, dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
Preparation:
In a large, heavy pan with tall sides, combine the milk and sugar. Split the vanilla bean along its length and scrape the seeds into the pot, then throw in the pod. Bring to a simmer, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
When it has reached a simmer, remove from the heat and add the bakin soda and water, stirring vigorously. When the mixture settles down, return the pan to the heat and bring to a brisk simmer. Simmer for about one hour, or until it turns golden brown. You don't have to stir - go about your business and keep an eye on it.
After the milk mixture has changed to a deep golden brown check it more frequently. This is where you can decide just how dense and thick you want it to be. If you want it pourable, like caramel sauce, wait just until it reaches the consistency of maple syrup - about 20 minutes after the colorchange - and take it off the heat. Strain through a mesh strainer into a glass jar or container and let cool. Or, if you prefer a jam-like consistency to spread on toast, crackers, and anything else you can think of, let it cook longer. It will solidify into chewy candy if you cook it long enough.

Chimichurri Recipe

Finally, what you've been asking for: the Chimichurri recipe. Now you will be able to prepare this sauce and give your barbecues a delicious argentinian touch.
First, let me tell you some facts about Chimichurri. It is a sauce originally from Argentina that has a liquid consistence and it's used with grilled meat and chorizos. It is told that its name comes from a british called Jimmy McCurry who invented it in the 19th century. But that's one of various versions about the origin of this sauce's name.

OK, let's go with the recipe. You will need:

1/4 Cup of Water
1/2 Cup of Olive Oil
1/4 Cup of Vinegar (Red wine type will be good)
1/4 Cup of parsley, chopped in little pieces
1/2 Onion, chopped in little pieces
1/2 Red bell pepper, chopped in little pieces
2 cloves of garlic chopped in little pieces
1 spoon of dried oregano
1 spoon of paprika
1 spoon of salt
1/2 spoon of black pepper

Now let's prepare it. First, put all the ingredients except the oil, the water and the vinegar into a large bowl. Make a nice mixture with all of them. Then add the water and the vinegar and mix again. You can let it rest for 30 minutes now. After that, add the olive oil and mix one more time. Now you have the chimichurri almost ready. The only thing that you must do is to let it rest in the fridge for a whole night or even 1 o 2 days. That will give the sauce a better taste. Some people store it in the fridge even for a week or more. I hope this recipe helped you on making this great sauce. See you next time with another great recipe from Argentina!.

Argentine barbecue recipe (asado tips)

In Argentina, a barbecue is called "asado". If you are invited to an asado, you will enjoy delicious argentine meat and a nice meal with friends.
Most people here in Argentina has their own recipe for the asado. Here we will give you the most common way of preparing a great argentine barbecue.
First of all we will choose the kind of meat we will be serving and we must have in mind that one person will eat a little more than 1 pound of meat. The most popular kinds of meat in an asado are: Asado, Vacio, Entraña, Chorizo and Morcilla.
Before we start preparing the meat we must check that it's not frozen (only if it was prevously frozen, of course). If the meat is still frozen it might end up a bit raw in the center.
Then we should season the meat with salt to enhace its flavour.
To prepare the grill it is always good to clean it with paper (a newspaper will do a good job). Then we light the fire and add a mountain of charcoal to get some nice red hot charcoals that will cook our meat. It is very important that we have full control of the fire, its intensity and the distance between the grill and the fire. We must ensure that the charcoals will stay red and hot until all the meat is cooked. We will give you advices for a really great charcoals fire in future posts.
When our fire is ready, we pass to the cooking part. Always put the meat with the bone part down. If it's not a meat with bones, then you must put it with the fat part down. It's also important that you don't move the meat to another place, it has to stay in the same place untill it's cooked. Otherwise it will get too many marks from the grill pattern and that will change its flavour. If the meat needs to receive more heat, just move the hot charcoals beneath it. You should distribute the charcoals equally through all the bottom of the grill.
Half an hour after we start with the meat, we put the chorizos with some toothpicks nailed on it in order to let the fat out of the chorizo.
The morcilla only takes about 15 minutes to get ready. Some people nail it too with toothpicks.
Later, when we notice that the bone part is roasted (or the fat part, depending on the kind of meat) and the meat is half-cooked, we must turn them to cook the other side. Try not to nail it too much or it will loose its juices.
When we feel the meat is ready to be eaten... we remove it from the grill and cut it in order to serve it. It's always a good choice to eat it with some tomatoe-onion-lettuce salad or french fries, and a nice red wine.
Well, ¡that's all!. We hope you and your friends enjoy a nice argentine barbecue or, as it is called here: ¡a nice asado!.

5th Tango Dance World Championship review

From August 16th to 26th, 2007 the Buenos Aires Ministry of Culture held the 5th Tango Dance World Championship. Since 2003 this contest gathers in Argentina the best tango dancers of the world. Year after year this competition has turned more international. 479 couples from 154 cities from around the world participated this year, 11 of them were from Japan (the biggest representation of a non-latinamerican country).
The Tango Dance World Championship final was held on the Rural Society with more than 3,000 people enjoying the show. Argentine contestants Inés Muzzopappa and Dante Sánchez won the Salon Tango category. Between the finalists excelled many couples from Colombia, Russia, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan and USA.
This contest comprises two categories, Salon Tango and Stage Tango. The Salon Tango category consist in all the tradicional way of dancing tango. On the other side, the Stage Tango category is sort of "fantasy tango" and includes artistic and synchronized tango dance moves.
In ten rounds, the couples danced along with music from great orchestras playing songs from famous tango composers such as Anibal Troilo and Osvaldo Pugliese. The jury was captivated by the winning argentine couple, both 20 years old. They danced amazingly with elegance and style in every step on the dance floor. Finally they won the cup and a 2,000 dollars check.

What is the "Mate"?

Have you ever heard about a drink called "mate" and wondered what it is all about?. In this post we will give you some hints.
The mate is a hot infusion tipical from some countries of South America such as Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and some regions of Brasil and Chile. Argentina is the world's greatest producer of this drink and also the greatest consumer.
Now let's see some definitions before we continue.
Yerba Mate: is the name of the grass used to drink mate. It is obviusly green and dry.
Mate: is the container where de Yerba Mate and the hot water is served. It is called like the drink itself.
Bombilla: it's like a metallic straw that helps you drink the hot water in the Mate.
Termo: it's like a thermal bottle that keeps the water hot and ready to drink a nice mate.
To explain it quickly, the way of preparing mate is to put some Yerba Mate in the Mate, pour some hot water in it and drink it through the Bombilla. When you feel there's no more hot water to drink, you pour more hot water in the Mate and drink... and so on. The first times that you drink mate you may say it has a reallly bitter taste but it can be served with sugar to make it a little sweeter. There are also other ways of changing the mate's taste, but we will focus on that and more other things about mate on future posts.