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Michirones

Michirones are dried broad beans slowly simmered with pork, bay and hot chilli until soft and spicy, and in Murcia they are the tapa of cold months, ladled into small bowls in the city's bars with a spoon stuck in. The beans need a long soak and a long cook, so bars make a big pot in the morning that lasts all day. This contains pork (chorizo, panceta and a cured ham bone). Chef's tip: wait until the end to add salt, because the ham bone and chorizo season the broth as they cook.

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Papas chorreadas

Chorreadas means drenched, and that is the idea: in farmhouse kitchens of Boyacá and Cundinamarca, whole boiled potatoes get a hot, loose sauce of tomato and long spring onion poured over them, enriched with milk and stretchy fresh cheese. It is comfort food from the cold highlands, served beside grilled meat on Sundays or on its own with an arepa and a mug of aguapanela on a weeknight. Colombians use queso campesino or doble crema, both usually made with animal rennet; a vegetarian mozzarella or other microbial-rennet melting cheese works perfectly. The mistake to avoid is adding the cheese to a boiling sauce, which makes it split and turn stringy; keep the heat low. Chef's tip: let the tomato and onion cook until really soft and jammy before the milk goes in, so the sauce tastes sweet and deep rather than raw.

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Ensalada de papa y huevo

Sunday asados in Argentina tend to come with two salads: the green ensalada mixta and this one, chunks of boiled potato and hard-boiled egg dressed while warm with oil, vinegar, salt and plenty of parsley. Some households stir in mayonnaise, which takes it close to ensalada rusa, but the oil-and-vinegar version is lighter and lets the potatoes taste of themselves. It is mild, soft and slightly tangy, and good at room temperature, which is why it suits an outdoor lunch that goes on for hours. Dressing cold potatoes is the error that leaves the salad bland: warm potatoes soak up the vinegar and oil, cold ones don't. Choose waxy potatoes that hold their shape, and cook the eggs fully for 10 minutes. Chef's tip: sprinkle the vinegar on the hot potatoes first and wait five minutes before adding the oil; the potatoes absorb the acid and the salad tastes seasoned all the way through.

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Matambre arrollado

Christmas and New Year in Argentina fall in high summer, so the festive table is crowded with cold dishes, and matambre arrollado is the one that draws a crowd: a thin sheet of beef from between the ribs and skin (matambre, the rose or flank cut), spread with garlic and parsley, layered with hard-boiled egg, carrot and red pepper, rolled into a fat sausage, poached and pressed. Rotiserías in the Buenos Aires suburbs sell it by the slice, and each round shows a mosaic of colours. Served cold with Russian salad and a sharp chimichurri, it is tender and savoury. Because the outside of the meat ends up rolled inside, cook it to a core temperature of 71 °C, as for minced meat. The usual mistake is slicing it warm: it falls apart, so press it under a weight in the fridge overnight. If you can't find matambre, ask the butcher for a thin flank steak butterflied to 1 cm. Chef's tip: lay the meat with the grain running along the roll, so each slice cuts across the fibres and stays tender.

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Reviro

For field workers in the yerba-mate plantations of Misiones, the morning starts with reviro: a simple dough of flour, egg, water and salt fried in plenty of fat and then broken up with a spatula as it cooks, until it becomes a pile of crisp, golden, irregular crumbs with soft centres. It is filling, cheap and very good dunked in a mug of mate cocido or milky coffee, and it shares its roots with the Guaraní and Paraguayan kitchen across the river. Traditionally it is fried in lard or beef fat; this version uses butter and oil so it is vegetarian. Turning it too early is the classic blunder: the batter needs to fry undisturbed until a crust forms, or it turns into a pale, doughy mash. Chef's tip: keep chopping and turning with the edge of a metal spatula for the last 10 minutes; the more edges you make, the more crunch you get.

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Guiso carrero

The carreros who hauled goods across Corrientes in ox carts needed food that kept for weeks, so they cooked rice in a single pot with charqui, sun-dried salted beef, plus whatever onion and pepper they carried. The guiso is still made in Corrientes homes and at country gatherings: rice swollen in a paprika-tinted broth, stringy shreds of beef with a deep, cured flavour, and a texture somewhere between a soupy risotto and a pilaf. Eat it hot from the pot with bread or chipá. Charqui is sold in Latin American shops; Brazilian carne seca works the same way. Forgetting to soak the dried beef is the classic mistake: it stays leathery and turns the whole pot too salty. Chef's tip: fry the soaked, shredded charqui in the oil before the vegetables; the caramelised edges give the broth its smoky depth. Plan for an overnight soak.

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Bife a caballo

On the chalkboard of any neighbourhood bodegón in Buenos Aires you will find bife a caballo, steak "on horseback": a thick bife de chorizo (sirloin) or rump seared hard in a hot pan, crowned with two fried eggs whose yolks run into the meat juices, and served with a pile of chips. It is the plate for hungry taxi drivers at lunch and for anyone recovering from a long night. Cook the steak to your taste; Argentines usually ask for it jugoso (medium rare, about 55 °C in the centre) or a punto (medium, about 60 °C). Use eggs fried until the whites are fully set, and cook the yolks firm for anyone vulnerable. Crowding a pan that isn't hot enough is the classic mistake, which stews the steak grey, so let the pan smoke first. Chef's tip: rest the steak while you fry the eggs in the same pan; the beef juices in the fat give the whites crisp, savoury edges.

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Bizcochitos de grasa

A paper bag of bizcochitos de grasa sits next to the mate gourd in kitchens, offices and roadside service stations across Argentina, from Buenos Aires to the Andes. These little rounds, a couple of bites each, are layered with beef fat, so they flake and crumble, salty and plain enough to eat by the dozen with bitter mate in the afternoon. The fat is rendered beef fat (grasa vacuna), so they are not vegetarian; ask your butcher for dripping or render suet yourself. A dough worked too warm is the mistake that robs them of their layers; the fat melts into it instead of staying in sheets. Chef's tip: chill the dough for 10 minutes between folds whenever it starts to feel greasy, and prick each round right through so it puffs in flakes rather than domes.

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Chivito al asador

Malargüe, in the dry south of Mendoza, holds a goat festival every summer, and the star is the chivito: a milk-fed kid opened flat, wired to an iron cross and planted at an angle beside a fire of jarilla or other hardwood. It cooks from the side, never over the flames, basted with a garlicky salmuera until the skin turns glassy and crackling and the meat pulls apart. Serve it straight from the cross with salad, bread and chimichurri. Order a whole kid of 5–7 kg dressed weight from a specialist or halal butcher, and check the cross fits it before the day. Most failures come from setting it too close to the fire, which burns the outside while the thick legs stay raw. Kid is lean, so cook it right through, as in Mendoza: the thickest part of the leg should reach at least 70 °C. Chef's tip: cook bone side to the fire for two-thirds of the time; the ribs protect the meat, and the skin goes on last so it crisps instead of scorching.

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Tipakay

Sweet, tangy and a little sticky, tipakay is the chifa order for people who like their sauce on the fruity side: battered pieces of chicken fried crisp, then dressed in a dark, glossy sauce built on tamarind, panela and soy, with strips of red and green pepper and onion that keep some crunch. It is one of the most popular platters in Lima's family-run chifas, eaten with white rice or chaufa. Its sauce is darker and less candy-sweet than kam lu's, with tamarind's sour depth. The mistake most home cooks make is letting the peppers stew until soft; give them only a minute in the wok so they stay bright. Chef's tip: taste the sauce before thickening and balance it: more lime if it's cloying, a pinch more panela if it's too sour.

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Chinchulines

No proper Sunday asado in Buenos Aires province or the interior is complete without a round of achuras, and chinchulines are the boldest of them: beef small intestine, coiled on the grill and cooked slowly until the outside crackles like pork scratchings and the inside stays soft and rich with its own fat. Pass them round on a board with lemon and bread as a starter while the bigger cuts cook. Buy them already cleaned from a butcher or a Latin American meat counter, and rinse them again well at home. The usual mistake is too much heat: the outside burns long before the inside cooks. Offal must be cooked right through, with no soft, raw-looking parts. Chef's tip: simmer them briefly before grilling; it cleans them further, shortens the time on the coals and gives you a much more even crunch.

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Budín de pan

Thrifty Argentine kitchens never throw away stale bread: it becomes budín de pan, soaked in sweet milk and eggs, poured into a caramel-lined ring mould and baked in a water bath until it sets into something between a flan and a pudding. Bodegones in Buenos Aires and neighbourhood bakeries serve it in fat wedges, cold, with a spoonful of dulce de leche or whipped cream, the amber caramel running down the sides. The texture should be smooth and dense with only faint traces of bread, studded with plump raisins. The mistake to avoid is skipping the blending or soaking: chunks of dry bread turn into wet sponges and the pudding splits into layers. Chef's tip: let it cool and chill overnight in the mould before turning it out; a warm budín breaks when unmoulded and the caramel won't have melted into a sauce.

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Empanadas de pescado

Along the coast of Santa Fe, especially during Lent and Holy Week, fishmongers' stalls and riverside kiosks sell fried empanadas filled with sábalo or surubí. The fish is poached, flaked and folded through soft onion and sweet pepper, then sealed in a thin oil-based dough and fried until blistered and crisp. Squeeze lemon over them and eat them warm, with a green salad or just a paper napkin. Any firm white fish works: hake, cod or a farmed catfish. The mistake people make most is skipping the bone check; river fish such as sábalo hide fine bones, so run your fingers through every flake. Chef's tip: keep the filling quite dry and cold before you fill the discs; extra liquid turns to steam in the hot oil and bursts the seams.

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Torrejas de acelga

When a bunch of acelga (Swiss chard) is the cheapest thing at the verdulería, Buenos Aires home cooks turn it into torrejas: thin fritters of chopped chard bound with egg, a little flour, garlic and grated cheese, fried in shallow oil until the edges lace up and crisp. They are weekday food, eaten hot from the pan with a squeeze of lemon and a salad, or cold the next day in a sandwich, and children who won't touch greens tend to eat them. Inside they stay tender and green, outside nutty and golden. Wet chard is what ruins them: water left in the leaves makes the batter thin and the fritters spit and fall apart, so wring the blanched chard really dry. Grated hard cheese is often made with animal rennet; pick a vegetarian hard cheese if needed. Chef's tip: fry one small torreja first to check the seasoning and thickness, then adjust with a spoon of flour or a splash of milk.

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Mejillones a la provenzal

On the Atlantic coast around Puerto Madryn and the Golfo Nuevo, mussels from cold Patagonian waters are farmed and gathered in quantity, and seafood places along the rambla steam them a la provenzal, which in Argentina means lots of garlic and parsley. A splash of dry white wine goes into the pot; the alcohol mostly cooks off, but you can swap it for fish stock with a little lemon for an alcohol-free pot that tastes just as good. Serve with bread or chips to mop up the briny juices. Cooking mussels too long is the usual slip: they shrink and turn rubbery, so lift the lid as soon as most have opened. Before cooking, throw away any mussel with a broken shell or one that stays open when tapped; after cooking, discard any that stay shut. Chef's tip: keep the garlic in gently warm oil until it just smells sweet; brown garlic turns bitter and dominates the mussels.

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Polenta con tuco

Tuco is what Argentines call the red sauce of their Italian grandparents, and spooned over a mound of soft polenta it is one of the most ordinary, best-loved cold-weather suppers in Buenos Aires and across the pampas. On Sundays the sauce often gets a piece of beef; this is the everyday meatless version, with onion, red pepper, carrot, bay and a long simmer that turns the tomato sweet and deep. The polenta is enriched with butter and cheese until it falls off the spoon like thick custard. The most common mistake is pouring the cornmeal into the water all at once, which gives you lumps you will never beat out, so rain it in slowly while whisking. Grated hard cheese is usually made with animal rennet; choose a vegetarian one if needed. Chef's tip: make the tuco first and let it rest off the heat while the polenta cooks; even 15 minutes of standing rounds out its flavour.

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Kam lu wantán

Brought to the table as a sharing platter at big chifa lunches in Lima, kam lu wantán is a gleeful mix of textures: golden fried wontons filled with ginger-spiked pork, smothered in a bright, sweet-and-sour sauce full of sliced chicken, pork, pineapple, peppers, carrot, snow peas and bok choy. The wontons shatter at the edges and soften where the sauce soaks in, so eat it fast. It works as a starter for a crowd or a main with rice. The mistake to avoid is making the sauce too thick and gloopy; it should flow over the wontons, not sit on them like jam. Chef's tip: fry the wontons at the last minute and pour the sauce over at the table so the crunch survives.

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Centolla gratinada

Centolla, the southern king crab hauled from the cold waters of the Beagle Channel, is Ushuaia's pride, and seafood restaurants along the harbour serve it gratinada: sweet chunks of leg meat in a light white sauce, crowned with cheese and browned under a fierce grill. It is rich, so serve it in small dishes as a starter with lemon and a green salad, plus crusty bread for anyone who can eat gluten. Buy cooked, frozen king crab legs or meat and thaw them in the fridge overnight; if you ever cook crab yourself, it must be alive when it goes into the pot. A frequent mistake is a sauce so thick and cheesy that the delicate crab disappears; keep it pourable and the cheese thin. Chef's tip: fold the crab in gently at the end, in big pieces, and let the oven only heat it; it is already cooked and turns stringy if it boils.

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Aeropuerto

Nobody agrees why Lima's chifas call it 'airport', though the favourite story is that everything 'lands' on one plate: arroz chaufa and fried noodles stir-fried together in a smoking wok with roast pork, bean sprouts, snow peas and spring onion, then crowned with a thin egg omelette, sometimes with a few fried wontons alongside. It is hearty, smoky and salty from soy and oyster sauce, a late-night and lunchtime favourite to share. The main mistake is using freshly cooked rice, which goes mushy; use rice cooked the day before and kept in the fridge. Chef's tip: for a veg version, swap the pork for firm tofu and extra vegetables, and use a mushroom-based 'oyster' sauce.

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