Travel to Uruguay

Uruguayan cattle is famous for it’s meat. It’s quality is very high, cause the cows don’t eat any artificial product. To go to Uruguay is to eat ASADO. These are the ribs of the cow, in contrast to spare ribs these bones are surrounded with juicy meat.

The way the meat is roasted is on a big barbeque. The Uruguayans call it a “parrilla”. Instead of charcoal they are using burned tree brunches.

On “the parrilla” you will also find sausages, like chorizo, morcilla and chotos.And also pig and pollo.

It’s very usual to eat it with salads like mix of letuce and tomato or Russian salad

When the gauchos made a party they prepared a roast with the hide on.

Still today, it is the best way of honoring others that the people of the plain have, especially when they receive foreign visitors who want to know old typical customs.

To prepare it, a cow or a heifer is killed without being followed it, for tiredness spoils the taste and freshness of the meat. Without taking off its hide, it is aired during the whole night. In the early morning, a fire is made, and when there are only embers left, it is slowly roasted with the hide up on huge grills.

The asado is ready when the hair is easily removed by pulling. According to the custom, the meat is often turned over so that the hair is well toasted. Then it is taken out of the fire and served cold. Made this way, the meat acquires an exquisite taste and everybody who tried it for the first time likes it.

The empanadas or turnovers are placed in a preeminent position in Argentine home cooking. These preparations are common to many regions of our country, and in one way or another they consist of a filling enclosed in some dough. They cannot be absent in popular festivities.

Many provinces have their own recipe with some variations they can be made of ground beef filling or sweet filling. According to the area’s preferences they are prepared with onion, chopped green olives, chopped eggs, etc.

There fried and baked turnovers. The fried ones are cooked in hot lard and the baked ones are put into very hot oven for few minutes.

Fried cakes were, and still are, a gift on rainy days. When the weather was bad, people could not go out to work in the country.

So, the housewife made a mixture of flour, water, lard and salt; she handled it well so that the dough would be smooth and then she cut some balls giving them a cake shape.

These cakes fried in the lard of a cow or sheep, were an excellent company for the mate. They are served warm and sprinkled with sugar. There are so many recipes as cooks to prepare them.

One of the most typical food made at home.
The principal of the dish is beef or pork. In a big pan with vegetables like corn, onions, carrots and cabbage.

You put it on the stove and leave it for some time, then you will have a meal full of flavor.

This tipycal way of cooking came from Spain and mainly Italy.

They are a frequent company for the cooked mate of the evening or for the brewed mate.
They are made in several ways and with different kinds of dough.

Today you can make them with puff pastry that you can buy in the stores. You can also use the dough of the “tortas fritas”, cut in big squares, some 8 cm. each side. For each pastelito you will use two squares of dough, in one of them you will place a little cube of sweet potato jelly or quince jelly.

You have to cover this sastequare with the other one, seeing that the corners of the bottom square do not coincide with those of the top one, so that you make an eight pointed star. You must moisten the part around the cube of jelly with salty water in order to stick the doughs, pressing with your fingers to mark the cube. They are fried in abundant lard and then sprinkled with sugar.

The name of the cheese is Colonia and comes from the south-west region of Uruguay, the department Colonia.

When you go to a backery look for delicious “bizcochos”. These are small roles of crust filled with dulce de leche. When you want to eat something sweet for the small appetite look for “alfajores”.

These are little cakes with in the middle a big layer of dulce de leche….Unique!!!