Martin, just come back from two weeks travelling in Argentina, home of the asado and a near-religious devotion to cooking meat over fire. They’d just won the World Cup, so Messi and Maradona were on every wall – but the smell of an asado was always with us, and there was a lot to learn.
Eight things I learned
1. It’s everywhere
From smart restaurants in Buenos Aires like the world-renowned Don Julio, to street vendors outside the Boca Juniors stadium; from rooftop apartments to rural wineries; from gauchos high in the Andes to the men on the building site – everyone is cooking lunch or dinner over fire, day after day.
2. The parrilla
Pronounced paree-zha in Argentina, not paree-ya. It’s the grill used in restaurants and homes alike: V-grills and drip trays much like our own, often under huge smoke canopies and set into firebrick alcoves. The asado is the social occasion built around it.
3. The meat
A tough place to be vegetarian. Huge cuts everywhere – even the supermarket counter beats the finest butcher in the UK. Big steaks, yes, but slower cuts too, like matambre, the thin flank from between the skin and the ribs. Buying steak by the 3kg piece was something else. Very few cuts are labelled; people just know what they are and how to cook them, and waiters know what’s best that day.
4. The chori
Short for chorizo: prime cuts, lightly spiced, in a large thick sausage – the mainstay starter of an asado. Cooked slowly, halved lengthways and cooked again, then served with chimichurri in bread as a choripan. The perfect lunch or social opener.
5. The wood
A sparsely populated country with the open spaces of Patagonia and the Pampas has an enormous variety of local hardwood. Big nets of assorted sizes and types are sold everywhere – essential for a well-managed fire.
6. The wine
It has to be Malbec. The vineyards around Mendoza, on the eastern slopes of the Andes, produce some of the world’s best reds. The everyday bottles locals drink are lighter and simpler, but come alive uncorked for a few minutes and drunk with grilled meat.
7. There’s no rush
Cook slowly, eat slowly, share, graze, come back for more. Laugh, sing – it’s only 2am. Nothing happens quickly or early, especially on a hot summer evening.
8. It isn’t easy
We did several basic asado cooks on open fire pits and braseros. Keeping ember temperature up, managing fuel and moving meat around takes real skill and hard work. I missed the ease of our Somerset Grill – but if you’ve cooked like that every day for generations, I suppose you learn.
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