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153 recipes

Omek houria

Nobody quite agrees why this salad is called mother of Houria, but every Tunis household knows it as one of the small dishes that open a meal, set out with bread, olives and brik during Ramadan or at a Sunday lunch. Carrots are boiled soft, crushed with a fork rather than puréed, and seasoned boldly with garlic, ground caraway, harissa, vinegar and good olive oil, so the sweetness of the carrot sits under a garlicky, warm heat. It is finished with black olives and wedges of hard-boiled egg and eaten at room temperature, scooped up with crusty bread. This version is vegetarian; some cooks add tuna on top. Chef's tip: dress the carrots while still warm; they soak up the oil and vinegar far better than cold ones.

30 min

Tunisian Salads

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Kaak warka

The hill town of Zaghouan, south of Tunis, is famous for two things: its Roman water temple and kaak warka, delicate rings of very thin, crumbly pastry wrapped around almond paste perfumed with rose geranium or rose water. They are a celebration sweet, bought in boxes for weddings, circumcisions and Eid, and should stay white when baked, with a fine sugary crumb and a soft, fragrant centre. Making them takes patience: the dough is rolled thin, wrapped around ropes of almond paste and shaped into rings. Chef's tip: bake low and short; the moment the bases colour, they are done, as any browning on top ruins their famous pale look.

105 min

Tunisian Baking

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Zrir

When a baby arrives in a Tunis family, visitors who come to see mother and child are offered zrir, a dense, glossy paste of toasted sesame, hazelnuts and almonds bound with butter and honey, believed to give strength to the new mother. It is served in tiny bowls or shaped into a mound and studded with nuts, and a spoonful is plenty. The taste is like a very rich halva with honey and toasted nuts. It keeps for a couple of weeks in a jar. Chef's tip: grind the sesame while it is still slightly warm; the oils release more easily and the paste turns smooth rather than sandy.

45 min

Tunisian Desserts

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Pine nut tea

Order tea in a Tunis café, especially in the cafés of Sidi Bou Said overlooking the bay, and it often arrives with a spoonful of pale pine nuts bobbing on top. The tea itself is brewed strong and very sweet, green with mint or dark black tea boiled until syrupy, and poured from a height into small glasses so it froths. The nuts soften slightly in the heat and you eat them at the bottom of the glass, buttery against the bitter-sweet tea. It is drunk after meals and through the evening. Chef's tip: toast the pine nuts lightly in a dry pan; just a hint of colour brings out their butteriness without making them sink.

12 min

Tunisian Drinks

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Citronnade

Café terraces in Tunis serve citronnade in tall glasses on hot afternoons and through Ramadan evenings, and it is nothing like clear lemonade: whole lemons, peel and all, are blended with sugar and water, then strained, giving a cloudy, pale-yellow drink that tastes of the zest as much as the juice. A drop of orange-flower water rounds it off. It should be sharp, sweet and very cold. Use unwaxed lemons with thin skins. Chef's tip: let the cut lemons sit with the sugar for 10 minutes before blending; the sugar draws out the fragrant oils from the peel.

15 min

Tunisian Drinks

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Bouza

On the morning of Mawlid, the Prophet's birthday, Tunis families make large bowls of creamy pudding and send small ones to neighbours, and bouza made from sorghum flour with roasted hazelnut paste is one of the best loved. The sorghum gives a fine, slightly earthy cream; the hazelnuts make it taste almost like praline. It is poured into glasses, left to set and decorated with a thick layer of chopped nuts, pistachios and sometimes sugared almonds. Make it the day before so it chills firm. Chef's tip: whisk the sorghum flour into cold liquid before it goes near the heat, or it seizes into lumps you cannot whisk out.

60 min

Tunisian Desserts

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Bsissa

A tin of bsissa sits in many Tunisian kitchen cupboards, from Tunis flats to farmhouses in the south: a finely ground flour of roasted barley, roasted chickpeas and spices such as coriander, fennel and aniseed. In the morning a few spoonfuls are worked with olive oil and something sweet into a nutty, crumbly paste, or stirred with water into a thick drink, and it keeps you going until lunch. Travellers and pilgrims once carried it for the road. Roasting your own flour takes 15 minutes and makes a jar that lasts weeks. Sugar and dates keep it vegan; some families use honey. Chef's tip: roast the flours separately over a low heat and stir constantly; the moment they smell like toasted biscuits and turn light tan, tip them out of the pan.

25 min

Tunisian Breakfast & Brunch

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Tunisian samsa

Tunisian pastry shops in the old medina stack samsa in neat pyramids at Eid and weddings, and families make trays of them at home before the feast. The triangles are folded from malsouka, a paper-thin pastry also used for brik, around a filling of ground almonds and toasted sesame scented with orange zest and orange-flower water, then baked or fried and dropped into a lemony syrup. They are shatteringly crisp at the corners, sticky and nutty in the middle, and go with a glass of mint or pine-nut tea. Spring roll pastry, brick pastry or filo can stand in for malsouka. Chef's tip: dip hot pastries into cool syrup, never hot into hot; that contrast keeps them crisp instead of soggy.

75 min

Tunisian Desserts

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Zapallitos rellenos

Round green zapallitos, the size of a tennis ball, pile up at every verdulería in Buenos Aires from December to March, and stuffing them is how home cooks turn a cheap summer vegetable into a main course. The shells are blanched, hollowed and refilled with their own flesh fried with onion and red pepper, bound with egg and melting cheese, and topped with breadcrumbs that bake to a crunchy lid. Expect a soft, savoury, slightly creamy filling under a golden crust; serve two per person with a tomato and onion salad or white rice. Overcooking the shells in the first boil is the trap: they collapse in the oven and leak water, so they only get 4 minutes. Round courgettes, eight-ball squash or short fat courgettes all work. The cheeses are usually made with animal rennet; swap in vegetarian versions if needed. Chef's tip: squeeze the chopped flesh in a clean cloth before frying it; drier filling means a firmer, tastier stuffing.

60 min

Argentinian Vegetarian

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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.

25 min

Argentinian Meat

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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.

90 min

Argentinian Snacks & Starters

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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.

240 min

Argentinian Meat

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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.

60 min

Argentinian Baking

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Sorrentinos de calabaza

Mar del Plata claims the sorrentino, a big round stuffed pasta about the size of a jam-jar lid that Italian-Argentine cooks made their own in the mid-20th century; despite the name, you won't find it in Sorrento. Every fresh-pasta shop in Buenos Aires province sells them by the dozen on Sunday mornings, and the squash version, with roasted calabaza, ricotta and nutmeg, is the most loved. The filling is sweet and soft, the pasta thin but sturdy, and the sauce is either brown butter with sage or a plain tomato filetto. The classic mistake is boiled squash: it carries too much water, the filling weeps and the parcels burst in the pot, so the squash is roasted until dry and caramelised. Grated hard cheese is usually made with animal rennet; choose a vegetarian hard cheese if needed. Chef's tip: chill the filling until firm before you shape it; a cold, stiff filling is far easier to seal without air pockets.

100 min

Argentinian Pasta & Noodles

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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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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.

30 min

Argentinian Snacks & Starters

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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.

65 min

Argentinian Meat

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Patay

Long before sugar reached the dry northwest, the pods of the algarrobo tree were the region's sweetness, and patay is the oldest way of keeping them: the pods are ground, the flour is moistened and pressed into a cake that dries into something dense, fudgy and naturally sweet, with notes of cocoa, coffee and caramel. In Santiago del Estero you still buy it in round slabs at markets and roadside stalls, to eat with mate or to crumble into milk. Harina de algarroba comes from the South American Prosopis tree; look for it in health-food shops or online, and mesquite flour is the same family and works well. Mediterranean carob flour is different and tastes more bitter. Too much water is the way most first attempts go wrong: the cake should be pressed from a damp, crumbly mix, not a batter, or it bakes up gummy. Chef's tip: sieve the flour twice; algarroba flour clumps, and lumps stay as hard grains.

40 min

Argentinian Baking

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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.

55 min

Argentinian Vegetarian

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Anchi

Sold in plastic cups from coolers at Salta's Mercado San Miguel and on village plazas at the end of a hot afternoon, anchi is a thin, sweet pudding of fine maize semolina cooked with water, sugar and plenty of lemon. It sets only softly, so it is half eaten and half drunk, cold and refreshing, often with slices of poached peach or a few rehydrated orejones (dried peaches) on top, and sometimes a dusting of cinnamon. There's no milk or egg in it, which is what keeps it light. Too much semolina is the easy error: anchi should pour slowly from the spoon when cold, not slice like polenta, so stick to the ratio and remember it thickens as it cools. Fine maize semolina is the Salta choice; fine wheat semolina works too. Chef's tip: add the lemon juice off the heat at the end; boiled lemon loses its fresh sharpness.

25 min

Argentinian Desserts

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Trucha a la manteca

Restaurants on the shores of Nahuel Huapi, in Bariloche and Villa La Angostura, put rainbow trout from the cold Andean lakes on almost every menu, and this butter version is the one locals order most. Fillets are fried with crisp skin, then drenched in butter browned with flaked almonds and sharpened with lemon. Serve with boiled new potatoes and a green salad. Any trout or char works. People commonly start the fish in butter, which burns before the skin crisps; fry it in a film of oil and make the brown butter after. Chef's tip: dry the skin really well and dust it with rice flour; it gives a thin, glassy crust without any gluten.

25 min

Argentinian Fish

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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.

45 min

Argentinian Fish

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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.

25 min

Argentinian Fish

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Lomito completo

Córdoba claims the lomito as its own, and at lomiterías and late-night carts in the city it comes completo: thin, quick-seared slices of beef tenderloin piled into a big soft roll with cooked ham (pork), melting cheese, a fried egg, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise. It is messy, juicy and filling, the classic end to a night out or a Saturday football match, usually with chips on the side. The meat is only a few millimetres thick, so it cooks in a minute; Córdoba grills cook it through, but as a whole steak you can leave it a little pink to taste. The big error is a lukewarm pan, which boils the thin beef grey instead of searing it. Chef's tip: lay the cheese on the ham in the hot pan to melt while the egg fries, so everything goes into the toasted roll hot at once.

30 min

Argentinian Fast Food

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