I had been planning on trying to make empanadas for a long time now. Trying to cook new foods is always fun for me. After much search for a manageable recipe, I finally came across one that was not only in English, but written by a woman who married an Argentine and is now living in Mendoza (wine country) of all places. Her name is Rebecca and she is the author of the blog From Argentina With Love. She talks hits every major topic about living in Argentina from the perspective of an American exquisitely. However, my favorite section is her recipe section.
As I followed her recipe there was only one down side. Yes, when she uses pounds, cups and Fahrenheit as forms of measurement, it makes my life easier, but I'm in Argentina. My oven measures Celsius. Oh, wait. Never mind. my oven doesn't measure anything. It is just a knob marked by the words horno, min and max. No degrees. Just guesstimations. And if I was not in enough danger with this, it is a gas oven to. As in I have to light it. Uhhhhhhhhhhh.....................
I was clueless. I had managed to overcome the measurement obstacles and figure out half a kilo was close enough to one pound to make the recipe ok. On top of that, I had found a youtube video to educate me on properly folding the empanada dough. Celsius was probably another challenge I could have figured out too, but lighting a gas oven sounded dangerous for someone to do without any direction.
Sadly, my roommate was out and unable to help me. Lucky for me though I have Nick. Nick is my coordinator for my program. He mostly deals with students once they arrive in BA. He oordinates events (hence his title as 'coordinator') for us weekly, answers our questions about the city, helps us make weekend travel plans and hosts mate and medialunas every Friday. I have been planning on going to mate and medialunas so I took it upon myself to run there and have him inform me on how to light a gas oven.
Of course when I got home there was Sole to give me more specific directions for our particular oven (a precaution I found necessary), but I really wasn't hungry so I didn't make them. They went in the freezer. I went to Uruguay, and baking process was put off five days.
Finally on Wednesday I had to chance to try and light the oven myself and finish the empanadas. Luckily, I succeeded in both. I even got compliments from my roommates. Ok, the were kind of ugly. They had been frozen and I could not locate any non-stick spray for the pan, but all that matters is the taste right?
¡Besos!
La porteña Emilia
Showing posts with label Mendoza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mendoza. Show all posts
Friday, June 24, 2011
Friday, June 17, 2011
El Vino Argentino
Exactly 10 days before I left for Argentina I was blessed with my 21st birthday. Within a few years the luxury of being able to purchase alcohol in the United States will wear off, but for now it's nice. In honor of being able to purchase alcohol back home, I decided to partake in wine courses here in Argentina. I mean, now that they can finally be applicable to my daily life, I found it to be a necessity.
In my my classes I was able to learn about (1) what foods to pair the different types of wine with, (2) practiced detecting different scents in the wine, (3) examined the color of the wine, (4) detecting different levels of alcohol in wine by sight and (5) the wine making process. We will now transition to a place will I will further elaborate on my new intelligence or lack thereof.
(1) Food pairings
Tinto: red meat, cheese, pasta with a red sauce, red meat and cheese
Blanco: desserts, cheese, white meat, cheese
Pumante: Everything (personal opinion)
During my time in this class we were served various tapas. My favorite was the cheese. Every time you eat the cheese with a different kind of wine, the flavor changes. It is quite amazing and always fun to try and predict what the impending flavor is going to be.
(2) Scents
Tinto: still clueless
Blanco: granny smith apples
Pumante: yuuuuuuuuuuummy
This was by far the hardest thing to decipher. I really could only make up my mind with the white wines about what it reminded me of. They tend to be fruitier and I know the scents of fruits a lot better than spices.
(3) Color
Always examine the wine at a 45 degree angle over a white piece of paper. I always got confused after this part. When you look at the wine the color in the white wine is in the outside and the reflections are in the middle. With red wine the color is in the middle and the reflections are on the outside. I'm pretty sure this is what I always think, but I was told I was wrong several times after learning this for the first time. It could be the opposite, so maybe this section is irrelevant.
(4) Determining the alcohol level
Step One: Swirl the wine.
Step Two: Look at the tear drops falling down the side of the cup after the swirl.
Step Three: If they fall fast, there is less alcohol. If they fall slow, there is more.
(5) Production
This part might only be interesting to me, but that's ok since it is my blog.
Wine making starts from making sure each and every grape is absolutely perfect. Any imperfection and you can taste it in the entire batch of wine. No, the grapes being used are not the same ones you buy at the grocery store. These particular grapes come in many varieties too. Did you know that the 'type' of wine is actually the name of the grape? As in chardonnay is a grape before a kind of wine.
Next they carefully transport the grapes to the winery. To keep from breaking the skin and causing a natural fermentation process to start, they first wash them clean of all natural yeasts and place the grapes in a pneumatic press. This is a giant balloon that expands inside a tank to gently juice the grapes.
The juice is then place inside a tank where yeast is added for fermentation and the temp is carefully monitored to make sure the yeast doesn't die and stop the process. In red wines there is also a pump to keep the color consistent throughout the wine.
After an uncertain amount of time it is ready for one of three things. Bottling, aging, or moving on to becoming champagne. If aging is the choice it must go into an oak barrel. That is where wine gets all of its wonderful additional flavors from aging. The wood.
Now, technically champagne is only available in the Champagne region in France. In all other places it takes on a different name like sparking wine or vino pumante. To evolve into vino pumante, it must go through a second fermentation process. This can either be in a different tank or in an individual bottle (Dom Perignon is of this variety :))
Conclusion:
So, my intelligence is still rather elementary. At least I learned something. I was so obsessed with the idea of wine here I even made a special trip to wine country. It was amazing. I went to an organic winery where they would plant different fruit trees all along the periphery of the grape fields to act as a natural barrier for pests. Cool stuff.
¡Besos!
La porteña Emilia
In my my classes I was able to learn about (1) what foods to pair the different types of wine with, (2) practiced detecting different scents in the wine, (3) examined the color of the wine, (4) detecting different levels of alcohol in wine by sight and (5) the wine making process. We will now transition to a place will I will further elaborate on my new intelligence or lack thereof.
(1) Food pairings
Tinto: red meat, cheese, pasta with a red sauce, red meat and cheese
Blanco: desserts, cheese, white meat, cheese
Pumante: Everything (personal opinion)
During my time in this class we were served various tapas. My favorite was the cheese. Every time you eat the cheese with a different kind of wine, the flavor changes. It is quite amazing and always fun to try and predict what the impending flavor is going to be.
(2) Scents
Tinto: still clueless
Blanco: granny smith apples
Pumante: yuuuuuuuuuuummy
This was by far the hardest thing to decipher. I really could only make up my mind with the white wines about what it reminded me of. They tend to be fruitier and I know the scents of fruits a lot better than spices.
(3) Color
Always examine the wine at a 45 degree angle over a white piece of paper. I always got confused after this part. When you look at the wine the color in the white wine is in the outside and the reflections are in the middle. With red wine the color is in the middle and the reflections are on the outside. I'm pretty sure this is what I always think, but I was told I was wrong several times after learning this for the first time. It could be the opposite, so maybe this section is irrelevant.
(4) Determining the alcohol level
Step One: Swirl the wine.
Step Two: Look at the tear drops falling down the side of the cup after the swirl.
Step Three: If they fall fast, there is less alcohol. If they fall slow, there is more.
(5) Production
This part might only be interesting to me, but that's ok since it is my blog.
Wine making starts from making sure each and every grape is absolutely perfect. Any imperfection and you can taste it in the entire batch of wine. No, the grapes being used are not the same ones you buy at the grocery store. These particular grapes come in many varieties too. Did you know that the 'type' of wine is actually the name of the grape? As in chardonnay is a grape before a kind of wine.
Next they carefully transport the grapes to the winery. To keep from breaking the skin and causing a natural fermentation process to start, they first wash them clean of all natural yeasts and place the grapes in a pneumatic press. This is a giant balloon that expands inside a tank to gently juice the grapes.
The juice is then place inside a tank where yeast is added for fermentation and the temp is carefully monitored to make sure the yeast doesn't die and stop the process. In red wines there is also a pump to keep the color consistent throughout the wine.
After an uncertain amount of time it is ready for one of three things. Bottling, aging, or moving on to becoming champagne. If aging is the choice it must go into an oak barrel. That is where wine gets all of its wonderful additional flavors from aging. The wood.
Now, technically champagne is only available in the Champagne region in France. In all other places it takes on a different name like sparking wine or vino pumante. To evolve into vino pumante, it must go through a second fermentation process. This can either be in a different tank or in an individual bottle (Dom Perignon is of this variety :))
Conclusion:
So, my intelligence is still rather elementary. At least I learned something. I was so obsessed with the idea of wine here I even made a special trip to wine country. It was amazing. I went to an organic winery where they would plant different fruit trees all along the periphery of the grape fields to act as a natural barrier for pests. Cool stuff.
¡Besos!
La porteña Emilia
The Majesty of the Mountains
This past weekend I went to Mendoza. It is the wine country of Argentina where all of those Malbecs and Torrontes are made for my wine connoisseur friends out there. Now, as excited as I was about the wine, I have to admit the mountains were sooooooo much cooler.
It's hard to put into words how wonderful they are. I have pretty much grown up my entire life living relatively close to the beach. It is only an hour away so I'm able to take lots of day trips and go several times a year. The thing is, there is nothing that the beach can to to take my breath away quite like the mountains do. When I sit on the beach or walk along the water, I can see and feel where I am. It is apparent. The experience is just pretty straight forward and short lived.
Being in the mountains is a completely different experience. You can't really feel
a mountain the way you can feel a beach. There is nothing strange about the ground that is distinctly mountainous unless you count the inclines (which vary greatly and unless you are rock climbing, it probably isn't much steeper in the place you are at than a hill), nor is there something like the ocean looming around for you to go up and touch (just the occasional large rock you pass).
What makes the mountains so magical is that you become a part of them. They surround you. Encompass you. They become a part of you, and you become a part of them. You cannot touch it, because being there makes you apart it. The world that surrounds you is made up of so many different elements, it is impossible to name just two things that make the mountains so magical. There is no other point in my life where I really understand the idea of "becoming one with nature."
If you like being crammed at the beach trying to soak up sun and get skin cancer feel free. I think I'm going to keep being stupefied by the 360° view of beauty from the mountain top.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Goals
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