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Postre vigilante

Ask for dessert in an old Buenos Aires bodegón and the waiter will rattle off flan, budín and, inevitably, vigilante: a thick slab of soft, mild cheese laid beside an equal slab of dulce de membrillo or dulce de batata. The name, "policeman", is said to come from the beat officers who ordered it as a cheap sweet in early twentieth-century cafés; Uruguayans call the same plate Martín Fierro. It is salty against sweet, creamy against firm, and takes five minutes. The traditional cheese is fresh queso cremoso or cuartirolo, or a firmer port salut; a young Havarti or mild Gouda is the best stand-in abroad. Like many soft cheeses, these are often made with animal rennet, so check the label for a vegetarian (microbial-rennet) cheese. The usual error is cutting the slabs thin like a cheese board; vigilante is about generous, equal bricks. Chef's tip: take the cheese out of the fridge 20 minutes ahead; cold cheese tastes of nothing next to the paste.

5 min

Argentinian Desserts

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Submarino

Café tables in Buenos Aires have their own way with hot chocolate: the waiter brings a tall glass of frothy, steaming milk on a saucer with a slim bar of dark chocolate, and you drop the bar in yourself and watch it sink like a submarine. Stirred with a long spoon, it melts into a rich, not-too-sweet drink, and it is the classic order with medialunas on a cold winter afternoon or after school. At home it takes five minutes, and children love the moment of dropping the bar in. The common letdown is milk that is only warm: the chocolate sits in a lump at the bottom. Heat it until it is steaming and just starting to rise, but not boiling. Chef's tip: froth the hot milk with a whisk or milk frother before pouring; the foam on top is part of the café ritual and keeps the drink hot while the chocolate melts.

5 min

Argentinian Drinks

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Quesillo con miel de caña

In the Tafí del Valle hills above San Miguel de Tucumán, quesillo is made by stretching hot curd into long, thin, elastic sheets and folding them into flat rounds; along the road up from the city, stalls sell it beside jars of miel de caña, the dark syrup boiled from the juice of Tucumán's sugarcane. Put the two together and you have the province's simplest dessert: mild, milky, slightly squeaky cheese with a pour of syrup that tastes of molasses and caramel, plus walnuts for crunch. It is eaten after lunch or as a merienda with mate. Drowning the cheese is the usual misstep; the syrup is intense, so pour a ribbon, not a puddle. Real quesillo is hard to find abroad: fresh mozzarella, Oaxaca cheese or another fresh stretched-curd cheese is closest, and light cane syrup or a 2:1 mix of golden syrup and black treacle stands in for miel de caña. Most of these cheeses use animal rennet; choose a vegetarian one if needed. Chef's tip: warm the syrup slightly so it runs into the folds of the cheese.

10 min

Argentinian Desserts

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Salsa criolla

Chimichurri gets the fame, but at a Sunday asado anywhere from Buenos Aires to Salta the other bowl on the table is salsa criolla: tomato, onion and red and green pepper cut into small, even dice, dressed with vinegar, oil, oregano and salt, and left to sit until the juices pool. It is spooned over steak, chorizo and provoleta, piled into choripán, and eaten with grilled vegetables, and it brings freshness and acid to rich, smoky food. Expect crunch, a clean sour note and a mild sweetness from the peppers. Chopping it all in a food processor is the mistake: it turns watery and pulpy, so take the time to dice by hand. Some cooks use only red onion, others add spring onion or a pinch of chilli; adjust to taste. Chef's tip: dress the onion with the vinegar and salt first for 10 minutes before adding the rest; it softens the raw bite without losing the crunch.

15 min

Argentinian Chutneys & Dips

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Ceviche de chocho

Chocho, or tarwi, is the Andean lupin bean, a protein-packed legume grown high around Huaraz, Cajamarca and Puno, and street carts in the highlands sell it in plastic cups dressed like a ceviche: lime, red onion, tomato, coriander and a little ají, sometimes with toasted corn for crunch. It is fresh, sour and pleasantly firm, a vegan stand-in for fish ceviche that works as a starter or a light lunch. Food safety matters here: raw or bitter lupins contain toxic alkaloids and must never be eaten as they are. Use only ready-debittered, cooked chochos, sold in jars, vacuum packs or chilled tubs in Latin shops; if they taste bitter, rinse and soak them longer or throw them away. Lupin is also a common allergen and may affect people allergic to peanuts. The usual mistake is to drown everything in lime and leave it, which makes the onion limp; mix the dressing just before serving. Chef's tip: squeeze the limes gently by hand rather than with a press, so the juice doesn't turn bitter.

15 min

Peruvian Salads

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Uchucuta

Ground on a batán, the flat grinding stone found in Andean kitchens, uchucuta is the table sauce of Ayacucho and Cusco: rocoto or yellow chilli crushed with huacatay, toasted peanuts and a little fresh cheese into a thick, speckled green-red paste. It goes on boiled potatoes, choclo, broad beans and huatia, and on festival days it sits next to every plate. The flavour is hot, herby and nutty, with a salty creaminess from the cheese. The name comes from the Quechua uchu, chilli, and it is meant to be spicy, but people often add all the rocoto at once and end up with something inedible; blend in half, taste and build up. A food processor or blender will do the work of the stone, though pulse it so the sauce keeps some texture. Queso fresco is usually made with animal rennet, so choose a vegetarian fresh cheese if you prefer. Chef's tip: toast the peanuts yourself until just golden; their warmth softens the raw sharpness of the chilli.

15 min

Peruvian Chutneys & Dips

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Ensalada de chonta

Iquitos restaurants and the riverside cafés of the Peruvian Amazon serve ensalada de chonta as a cool counterpoint to grilled fish and juanes: long, pale ribbons of fresh palm heart, crisp and faintly sweet, tossed with tomato, avocado, red onion and lots of lime. At Belén market you can watch sellers shave the chonta into curls with a big knife. Outside the Amazon, fresh palm heart is hard to find, but good jarred hearts of palm cut into thin strips work well, and the salad becomes a ten-minute job. It's crunchy, juicy and sharp, perfect with rice and beans or any fried snack. Where most people go wrong is adding the avocado and salt early, so the salad turns soupy and grey; dress it at the last moment. Chef's tip: slice the palm hearts lengthwise on a mandoline or with a peeler for thin, curling ribbons that look like the Iquitos original.

15 min

Peruvian Salads

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Aguajina

Aguaje is the scaly, chestnut-red fruit of the moriche palm that grows in the flooded forests around Iquitos, and its orange flesh ends up in ice lollies, ice cream and, above all, aguajina, the cold drink sold in plastic cups at every corner and in Belén market. The taste is unusual and loved locally: tangy, a little like apricot and carrot, with a rich, slightly oily body. Fresh aguaje must be softened in warm water for an hour before its thin layer of pulp can be scraped off; outside Peru, frozen aguaje pulp from Latin American shops is the realistic choice and gives a good result. A common slip is adding all the sugar before tasting: the pulp's sourness varies from pack to pack, so sweeten at the end. Serve very cold with lunch or on a hot afternoon. Chef's tip: blend the pulp with only part of the water first, so it breaks down fully, then stir in the rest.

15 min

Peruvian Drinks

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Camu camu

Camu camu are small purple-red berries that grow on bushes along the flooded riverbanks of the Peruvian Amazon, and in Iquitos and Pucallpa they are sold as frozen pulp and blended into a sharp, pink refresco at juice bars and lunch places. The flavour is intensely sour, more than lime, with a faint cherry note, and the berries are famous for containing far more vitamin C than oranges. It is the drink people order with a heavy plate of tacacho or rice. Never boil camu camu or make the juice hours ahead: heat and air quickly fade its colour and much of the vitamin C, so blend it cold and drink it soon. Frozen pulp or freeze-dried powder from health-food and Latin shops are the forms you'll find abroad. Chef's tip: start with half the pulp and add more to taste; it's strong enough that a little goes a long way.

10 min

Peruvian Drinks

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Ensalada mixta

Simplicity is the whole idea of the ensalada mixta, the salad that comes with almost every order at a parrilla and sits beside the meat at every family asado: crisp lettuce, ripe tomato and thinly sliced onion, dressed at the table with oil, vinegar and salt from the cruets. There's no mustard, no sugar, no herbs, so the quality of the tomatoes and the crunch of the lettuce carry it. It is cool, sharp and refreshing, and cuts through grilled meat, provoleta and fries. The usual blunder is dressing it too early: the salt pulls water from the tomato and the lettuce goes limp in minutes, so toss it just before it goes to the table. Round butterhead lettuce (criolla) is the classic, but any crisp lettuce works. Chef's tip: soak the sliced onion in iced water for 10 minutes and drain; it stays crunchy but loses its harsh edge.

10 min

Argentinian Salads

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Licuado de banana

Order a licuado in any Argentine café or bar and you will get a tall glass of fruit blended with milk (con leche) or water (con agua), and banana with milk is the one nearly everyone grows up on. It is breakfast for teenagers in a hurry, a merienda with tostados, and the drink parents in Buenos Aires make when the fruit bowl has spotty bananas. It should be thick, cold and smooth, with a light froth, sweet mainly from ripe fruit. Using under-ripe bananas is the mistake: they taste chalky and need lots of sugar, so wait for brown freckles. Chef's tip: slice and freeze the bananas the night before and you can skip the ice; the shake comes out colder and thicker without being watered down.

5 min

Argentinian Drinks

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Leche de tigre

Every cevichería along Lima's coast, from Chorrillos to the market stalls of Surquillo, sells this as a pick-me-up before lunch: a small glass of milky, lime-sharp juice blitzed with fish, celery, ginger and ají limo, with a few cubes of fish and kernels of cancha floating on top. It is cold, salty, very sour and fiery, and people swear by it the morning after a long night. Because the fish is cured only by lime, this safer version uses very fresh white fish that has been frozen at −20 °C for 24 hours first, keeps everything ice cold and is drunk at once; it is not for pregnant women, young children or anyone with a weakened immune system. The common mistake is blending the lime with the fish for too long, which makes the juice bitter, so pulse only briefly. Chef's tip: squeeze the limes by hand, gently, without pressing the pith; the last hard squeeze is what turns leche de tigre bitter.

15 min

Peruvian Snacks & Starters

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Salsa golf

Mar del Plata's golf club gave its name to this sauce in the 1920s, so the story goes, and Argentines have been mixing mayonnaise and ketchup ever since. It is the pink sauce of the 1970s cocktail party and the seaside: spooned into half avocados (palta a la golf), over hearts of palm, onto a cold hard-boiled egg, beside fries or into a prawn cocktail, and every family has its own ratio. A drop of lemon and a dash of mustard lift it from a simple mix to something tangy and creamy. Too much ketchup is the misstep that turns it sweet and orange; it should be a soft salmon pink. Use shop-bought mayonnaise, which is made with pasteurised egg; if you make your own, use pasteurised eggs. Check the labels of the mayonnaise, ketchup and mustard if you need it gluten free. Chef's tip: let it sit in the fridge for 15 minutes before serving; the flavours blend and it thickens slightly.

5 min

Argentinian Chutneys & Dips

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Chimichurri

No Argentine asado (barbecue), from a Buenos Aires rooftop to an estancia in the Pampas, is complete without a jar of chimichurri on the table. It is a loose, oily sauce of finely chopped parsley, garlic, dried oregano and chilli flakes in red wine vinegar and oil, sharp and herby rather than smooth like pesto. Spoon it over grilled vegetables, provoleta, halloumi, potatoes and bread. Chef's tip: chop everything by hand and let it sit for a few hours; a food processor bruises the parsley into a green purée and the flavours never settle.

10 min

Argentinian Chutneys & Dips

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Solterito

Solterito, the 'little bachelor', is a cold salad from Arequipa in southern Peru, so called because it was simple enough for a single man to make. Broad beans, sweet corn, fresh cheese, tomato and red onion are tossed with black olives, parsley and a little rocoto chilli in an oil and vinegar dressing. It is eaten with the spicy dishes of Arequipa's picanterías, or on its own as a light lunch. Rocoto is a fat, fiery red chilli; a red pepper with a little habanero gives a similar crunch and heat. Use queso fresco made with vegetarian rennet. Chef's tip: peel the broad beans after blanching; the pale skins are tough and the bright green beans inside make the salad sweet and tender.

15 min

Peruvian Salads

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Provoleta

Provoleta is the first thing off the grill at an Argentine asado: a thick round of provolone-style cheese, invented by Italian immigrants in Buenos Aires, cooked in a small iron pan or straight on the grate until the outside forms a golden crust and the inside turns molten. It comes to the table bubbling, sprinkled with oregano and chilli flakes and drizzled with chimichurri, to scoop up with crusty bread. Many provolones use animal rennet, so check the label and choose one made with vegetarian rennet. Chef's tip: chill the cheese well before cooking; cold cheese forms a crust before the middle melts and runs.

13 min

Argentinian Snacks & Starters

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Mate

Mate is less a drink than a ritual in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay: a gourd (also called a mate) packed with yerba mate leaves, a metal straw called a bombilla, and a thermos of hot water passed around friends, family and coworkers, from the parks of Buenos Aires to long bus rides across Patagonia. One person, the cebador, pours and drinks first, then refills and passes it on. It's grassy, bitter and gently stimulating; sweet versions add sugar. Chef's tip: never use boiling water; at about 75–80 °C the yerba stays fresh for many rounds instead of 'burning' and turning bitter.

5 min

Argentinian Drinks

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Cacık

Cacık is the Turkish version of tzatziki: thick yogurt mixed with cucumber, onion, plenty of parsley, garlic and green chilli, seasoned with salt, white pepper and a pinch of sugar and finished with fresh mint. Cool and refreshing, ready in minutes. Serve with warm pitta bread, curries and rice dishes.

10 minMiddle Eastern Chutneys & Dips

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Tahini dip

A creamy, nutty dip of roasted sesame seeds blended with yogurt, garlic, chilli, lemon and parsley. It's a lighter, home-made take on tahini sauce and is used in the aubergine dip. Serve it with pitta bread, falafel or vegetables.

13 minMiddle Eastern Chutneys & Dips

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