Our 7th international meal was from Argentina. The song “Don’t Cry for me Argentina” was going through my head all week! The meal was Roasted Acorn Squash Salad with Arugula and Chevre, Beef Empanadas, Chimichurri Dipping Sauce, Pastel de Papa con Elote (Potato and Corn Pie/Casserole), Crepes with Dulce de Leche. We liked everything and plan to make them all again.
Making the empanadas was fun. We made the empanada dough, rolled it out, cut out little circles, put in the beef filling, folded them over and crimped the edge. There is a special way to the crimp the edges called repulgue. Rob is much better at this than I am. Another thing to add to his resume.
While preparing dinner we drank Yerbamate tea, an herbal tea from South America. We found it at our local Market District. It is made from the leaves and twigs of the Llex Paraguariensis plant (related to the holly plant). It is traditionally shared amoung friends drinking from a shared gourd.
The potato corn casserole was mashed potatoes with very buttery creamed corn on top. Yum. The Dulce de Leche. So good it is EVIL. We made it by simmering a can of sweetened condensed milk for 3 hours. That’s it. After 3 hours it was this milky, sweet caramel sauce. I could have eaten the whole can. But I didn’t so there is still some in our fridge calling my name. The Dulce de Leche was delicious on the crepes. I have never made crepes before so this was fun to learn too. We also tried two different Argentinian wines with dinner.
Argentina has some beautiful areas that I hope to visit. In addition to the mainland, Argentina claims sovereignty over part of Antarctica, the Falkland Islands, and South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands (this last being contested by the United Kingdom).
