Blog Archives - Page 11 of 13 - In Search Of Umami

Chimichurri

French fries have their mayonnaise or ketchup. Duck has its cranberry sauce. Chicken has its wine sauce. And steak has, according to the Argentinians, chimichurri. This sauce isn't only perfect with a steak but also with beef in general and game meat. In my opinion it is one of the most versatile and delicious meat sauce there is.
This is though my interpretation of the recipe. But then again every "madre" in Argentina has its own so there isn't really an official one.

Ingredients:
- big bunch of oregano (fresh is better then dried)
- big bunch of parsley (same as above)
- a few twigs of rosemary (same as above)
- oil (olive oil or just normal vegetable oil, I don't think you will taste that much of a difference)
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 4-5 lemons (juice only) most people use vinagre over here. I'm not a big fan of it so I use lemon juice
- salt
- pepper
- chili (either dried or a fresh rawit or even a jalapeño) (add how spicy you want it)
- water

Recipe:
- now when it comes to quantities you need 1/3 of water 1/3 of oil and 1/3 of acidity. I used 200 ml of water, 200 ml of oil and 200 ml of lemon juice
- chop the oregano, parsley, rosemary, garlic and the chili and add all to the liquid mixture
- season to taste and if it's too acidic add more oil or water
- leave it in the fridge overnight to get the best result

Use the sauce with a steak or actually any kind of meat 😉

WWOOFing

WWOOF is a worldwide organization that permits people like us the experience of living on a farm with locals. And thanks to it we have stayed an amazing month on a farm close to Mar del Plata in Argentina. It's been different from our expectations as the farm is just beginning but we had the time of our life. We felt at home with the family that hosted us. We enjoyed our time over there cleaning, digging, renovating, planting. We truly hope that at some point we will be able to come back there and see the place flourishing! But what we enjoyed the most were people!!! We felt like we were a part of a big family. The hosts are truly inspiring people with lots of ideas and they were always open to talk about everything which allowed us to understand Argentina a bit more. And than the friends of the family. Especially our Euge who showed us really a lot around Mar del Plata and made us laugh on every kilometer of the way. And of course people with whom we volunteered!!! Kathi our German friend who was like a Chinese tourist taking pictures of everything (just like me:))) and a Canadian couple who were full of initiative to do things and with whom we created a nice group:)
On the farm I also became a huge fan of dogs. One in particular: Dingo. We found him on the side of a road when we were going to the city and we saw him again in the same place on the way back. Later he followed us to the farm. He was kind of crazy, scared and skinny but after few weeks at the farm he seemed to resemble a normal dog a bit more but still very enthusiastic. Deep down inside I hoped I could take him home with us. But our trip has just began and it's time for us to hit the road again. This time to Bariloche:)

Made in Argentina

In Europe everything is "Made in China". Well here not, it's "Industria Argentina". Coca Cola, cigarettes, tools, machines, cheese, you name it. Due to import restrictions it's actually difficult to get any foreign products and if you find them they are really expensive. Like for example nuts of all kind which come from Brasil, their prices are truely nuts, way more expensive than in Holland (and noone would call Holland a cheap country). The same goes for chocolate of any kind which hurts us the most:( and pure chocolate we still haven't found!!! But it goes further than that: Argentinian government wants to encourage the people here to spend vacation in their country and to do so they established a 35% tax on tickets abroad and everything you spend abroad. So for example going on vacation you buy a ticket to USA for 1000 dollars and in fact you have to pay 1350 dollars and than 35% on everything that you pay by card. If you would like to take some dollars with you, you need to request dollars explaining why you want them and if you don't earn enough, you won't get them. Also if you would like to buy something online from abroad, it's tax free only under 20 dollars, above that you have to pay ridiculous taxes.
For rich people it gets complicated too. Say you're Argentinian and you want to buy yourself a Ferrari while you're on vacation in Italy. Well first you will pay a lot to actually enter the country with it and than you will have to pray that it doesn't break because if yes it will be impossible to get the parts to fix it. Tough life:)

Eggplant conserve

Argentina is a country that wants to stay independent and not use products from abroad. That's why everyone is dependent on local produce and seasons. And what's better to enjoy fruit and vegetables that are out if season than conserves.
Fruit is typically used to make a marmalade and vegetables are boiled in vinegar with spices and later on used on bread. Especially cooking in vinegar was a bit of a strange technique for us and even a more surprising result. Now eggplant conserve is our absolute favorite conserve which we would like to share:)

Recipe
Ingredients:
- 4 big eggplants
- salt
- vinegar
- water
- a few garlic toes
- oregano fresh or dry
- Chili powder or fresh chili
- oil

- peel the eggplants and cut them in about 1.5 cm thick slices
- lay them flat and put salt on them to extract water and bitterness from them
- after 20 min remove all the water from the eggplant with some kitchen towel
- make a solution of about 200 ml vinegar to 20 ml water in a pan and bring to a boil
- boil the slices of eggplant in the solution until they are translucent and cooked
- put the cooked slices into a glass pot add oregano, slices of garlic, Chili powder, some salt and pepper and cover it with oil let it cool off and put it in the fridge overnight
- put the delicious slices onto a piece of bread with cheese

Enjoy!

If you want to be able to store it for a longer period you should, before adding the eggplant slices to the jar, either put the jar in boiling water for 10 min or use some alcohol (around 70%) to kill all the germs

Mate

Polish people love their vodka dutch people love their liqorice and argentinian people absolutely loveeee their mate. Yerba mate is dried, chopped leaf of llex paraguayensis which preparation is a ritual and social event:) it's prepared in a gourd which needs to be almost filled with yerba and then hot water needs to be poured over it (not boiling because than it burns the yerba). There is always one person who prepares mate and later on is responsible for refilling it and passing it to everyone. Everybody shares the same gourd and the same silver straw with filter on it (so filtering with your teeth is not necessary). It tastes a bit like really strong green tea, bitter and really herby. Argentina is the biggest producer and consumer of it which is visable everywhere! Doesn't matter if one goes to the beach or skiing, there always needs to be a thermo with hot water and mate gourd. That necessity created an unbelievable market for hot water. We have seen signs with (agua caliente -hot water) absolutely everywhere! In kiosks, hotels, gift shop, you name it!

Away from civilisation

Here we are in the middle of nowhere on a farm that we found via WWOOF. The closest "city" is 23 km away. And it's definately adventurous. There is no internet, no heating (and its not warm at night), no warm water to wash the dishes and obviously no washing machine. What we do have is mice, snakes, frogs and plenty of problems because everything is falling apart. We even had a gas explosion from an old kitchen stove, so we got an opportunity to use what we have learned at Shell, who would have ever thought... (Hopefully we are not gonna practice it anymore as the kitchen stove is exchanged now).
But we are surrounded by amazing people. The farm belongs to a family (couple in their 50' and children in our age) and they are exchanging every week so that someone from the family can be here to lead the volunteers (us and 2 other people). Incredible people who want to share everything with everybody which makes the experiment warm and pleasant. Jandirk is particulary enjoying cooking classes from Vivi (the mom).
Actually the farm is not existent at the moment as it was left unattended for years so we start from zero building a greenhouse, chicken house and making the houses liveable. It makes it even a more interesting experience to see it's growth and learn. And after a day of work we can chill with the horses, read all of the books that we ever wanted and stare at the stars.
I heard once that everywhere you can find a sky but the one that we have found here is incredible. Every night it's seems like an open air exposition, full of stars and constellations...:) and while lying on the grass enjoying it, we smell mint which grows here wildly everywhere.