Argentina

Menu: Empanadas & Fernet con Coca | Recipe Source: laylita.com and food52.com

Ask most people about their favorite college nostalgia foods and they’ll tell you about the best place to grab a drunken slice, a cheap but perfect taco, or a random dining hall homerun like Friday night French toast sticks. Ask a University of Miami grad though, and nearly all of them will start yapping about empanadas. Stopping at one of the campus empanada carts on the way to class for a mushroom and cheese was an almost daily occurrence for me during my first semester of freshman year, and even after the initial love-at-first-sight wore off, I still swung by on a weekly basis until I graduated and dream about them to this day.

Golden, crispy, and buttery on the outside and laden with infinite iterations of goodness on the inside, Argentinian empanadas come in dozens of flavors and sizes and vary significantly by region of the country. Popular varieties include salteñas (beef, potato, and onion), tucumanas (flank steak and lemon), riojanas (boiled egg and lamb), patagonicas (trout), humita (sweet corn and pumpkin) and mendocinas, which I made today: beef, green olive, onion, and paprika. Because no empanada is complete without a healthy serving of chimichurri on the side, I whipped up a quick batch of that, too, and all in all, I was so pleasantly surprised by how quick and painless the two recipes were. And while today’s empanadas weren’t quite as perfect as the ones I had the honor of eating all throughout my late teens and early twenties in Coral Gables, they were pretty darn close.

By itself, Fernet tastes like Malort cosplaying as a fairy princess. The wormwoody, nose-wrinkling flavor is toned down a bit, but even though it’s dressed up with all sorts of intriguing botanical and floral notes, that one-of-a-kind bitterness is undeniably present. Fresh off my first few sips of the cocktail, I was fully prepared for my review to be something to the effect of “Argentina, I’m happy for you, but I’m not riding with you on this one.” But after letting the drink melt and mellow on the counter for 10 minutes (translation: I got distracted making brownies), I gave it another few sips and was surprised to find I had completely changed my mind. The malty sweetness of the Coke and the sharp, herbal flavor of the Fernet somehow completely made sense to me once the drink was watered down a bit, and while I don’t know if I’ll be scrambling to make this one again any time soon, I’m happy to report that I can at least ~see the vision~.

Ready to cook?

Empanadas (link): I used dairy-free premade empanada discs (found at H Mart of all places) because I couldn’t find a recipe for the dough that didn’t use dairy! I used pork lard (rendered from panchetta I cooked yesterday) and beef tallow in lieu of 1/2 cup of butter, and I also added some fresh parsley to filling mixture and skipped the boiled egg.

Chimichurri (link): I made a few minor changes to this one simply because there were a few ingredients I couldn’t find! Red chiles are almost always sold in packs of 15 out here, so I decided to just use normal 1/2 tsp of red pepper flakes instead. I also couldn’t find fresh oregano, so I did 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil.

Fernet con Coca (link): I followed this recipe exactly.