Cocina Mediterránea

My first course at Gato Dumas, Tartas, Pizzas y Empanadas, was good fun, and we were making authentic Argentinian food. But the teaching wasn’t especially sophisticated, and I couldn’t understand a bloody thing. I didn’t really come to Argentina to learn about Mediterranean food, but last week, that’s what I had.

There were only five of us in the class, and in a different kitchen, we were right in front of the action. Taking the class was Ezequiel - a very good chef and an excellent teacher. He speaks a bit of English, but more importantly speaks clearly, so I could understand most of what he said.

Ezequiel

Each day we cook three courses, and each plate is very carefully thought out and balanced. Day one, we make filo vegetable rolls with balsamic reduction, papardelle with pancetta and chocolate fondant. The filo pastel is really good, as is the fondant, though the recipe doesn’t top the Gordon Ramsey one from the F-Word that I’ve always used.

Pastel de espinaca, feta y almendras

On Tuesday we knocked up Moussaka. I have no hesitation is saying it is the best moussaka I have ever tasted. Carefully arranged in a terracotta dish lined with the thinnest slices of aubergine, it is deliciously moist and succulent. For dessert we make baklava, one of my favourite things in the world. We also knock up a pretty good dish of chicken couscous.

Pechuga de ave con cous cous de frutos secos

My teammates and I

Next up, a rocket salad with goat's cheese. To follow, grilled tuna, but we use bonito (also Spanish for ‘cute’) instead. It’s served with confit fennel, creamy potato cake and garnished with tapenade and saffron infused oil. For dessert we have fruit kebabs with an awesome marsala foam.

Ensalada de rucola con queso de cabra

Bonito grillado con tapenade y torta de papas

Brochette de frutas con espuma de Marsala

Lastly, fried mozzarella, lamb chops and citrus fruits with honey and caramel shards. A great lesson in balancing dishes, plates and presentation. The lamb (undercooked for my liking) is paired with a cabbage and pancetta and a beautiful stuffed tomato. There's nothing too crazy about the other dishes - the cheese needed plenty of salsa, and the dessert spoke for itself.

Queso frito con salsa pomodoro

Costillas de cerdero

Cítricos con miel con sorbete de límon

I certainly didn't come to Argentina to learn about Mediterranean food, but it turned out to be a great reminder that you can learn a lot with great recipes and a good teacher, anywhere in the world. It was nice back in a kitchen, and a timely reminder of what my intentions were for the months ahead. I think I’d said something about learning how to cook…

Pan Relleno

It was the last class of the Tartas, pizzas y empanadas course last night, and we made pan relleno, or stuffed bread. There are three fillings; a salty mix of onions, leeks, tomato and mozzarella; corn in butter, flour and milk; and caramelized sweeet potato and quince.

Los profesores prepare the dough and the fillings as we watch

We make three different types of dough; one with olive oil for the corn; one with milk for the onion and tomato; and one with sugar for the sweet pastries. It's all pretty straightforward, until it comes to assembling the bloody things. They didn't show us exactly how to assemble them until we had already rolled our dough out, so my sweet ones were too rolled too thin, and I cut the squares too big. You have to spray them with a fair amount of water to help the dough stick too - there was definitely too much flour kicking around, and plenty of mine started flopping open once I'd pinched the corners. But you live and learn.

Me and my little tarts

The onion and tomato one is nothing special. But the corn is incredibly good. With practice, I guess you master the art of preventing the filling from spilling out of the horn shaped bread, and when that happens, you'd have a pretty good trick up your sleeve. The sweet ones are great too - our batch was a little over cooked, but they work in principle, and knowing what they're supposed to look like now, I'd be fairly confident of nailing them next time. All I need to do now is move to an apartment with a proper kitchen, and I can start.

At tasting time, the other guys in the class crack open bottles of champagne, and one of them even produces a couple of strawberry daiquiris, though no-one is quite sure where from. they hand out certificates, which is hilarious - the guy from Tucumán, Juan Martin, insists that the profesor puts his hat on when he gives them out - and everyone cheers and claps. Didn't get that at Ballymaloe.

Empanadas

Gato Dumas Colegio de Cocineros, Buenos Aires

The fact that there is a verb in Spanish, empanar, meaning to wrap in bread, should tell you all you need to know.

We make our pastry in the prescribed manner. Some of us are using suet, or grasa, instead of butter. Others are using salvado, or bran, as well as the usual harina de trigo flour. I am using butter, and before the final folding, I must lay basil leaves on the pastry.

We have three different fillings. First up, onions sauteed in butter, thickened with flour and mixed with milk. To this we add spinach and mozzarella. They go in the masa de salvado pastry, and are closed on top with pinches on alternate sides(the method of sealing an empanada denotes its filling). In the basil (albahaca) pastry is going a tomato, dried tomato and mozzarella mix. They are folded like giant cappelletti and bushed with paprika oil.

The final filling we make ourselves - it is as close to a Cornish Pasty one can get this side of the equator. Onions and spring onions are sweated in a ton of beef dripping. Then minced beef is added, browned, and cooked under a lid. They add cumin and paprika, and when it has cooled, chopped boiled huevos. The empanada is formed just like a pasty, with the rope to hold it by as you eat.

The guy to my left, Juan Martin, is, by the looks of things, a most accomplished cook. He speaks reasonable English so we can chat as we tuck in to our work. He is from the home of empanadas, he tells me (Tucumán in north-west Argentina) and explains how he makes them. They chop the beef by hand and blanche it, before cooking it in broth along with the onions, cooked in oil, not fat. They layer the ingredients in the pastry rather than mixing them together. He's going to email me a recipe. I think I could probably learn as much from him as I could from our profesoros.

Juan Martin de Tucumán

Which kind of gets me thinking. It's one thing mincing around the world going to cooking schools, and another learning about their food. I need to tap into the Juan Martins of this world, get local intel, local secrets, to really make this work. I think the best thing to do is to throw everything into the Spanish for a month, and hopefully use the two that follow to really learn about the food.

And after that? Well there's always Mexico, and it's just a short walk from Texas…

Monday Night: The Great Flood

Palermo, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Cooking classes started on Monday at Gato Dumas Colegia de Cocineros in Belgrano. It's a great little school, pretty well equipped, though not up to Ballymaloe standards. But the classes are in Spanish. Completely in Spanish. Still, it's surprising what you learn; your eyes tell you what's happening and you begin to piece together and understand things as you go.

On Monday we made Tartas - vegetable, tuna and spinach. The most interesting part of this was the pastry method - the flour is shaped into a giant ring, the butter is very soft and the dough is brought together in the centre. It is then rolled in the same way as puff pastry, in thirds and layered, but using melted butter and a lot of flour along the way.

The other pastry is much shorter and crumblier, and in the heat was almost impossible to roll. Fillings were spinach and ricotta (good), tuna with tomatoes (not great) and the crumbly one was a medley of vegetables topped with egg and cream (good). The only slightly worrying thing about all this is they are not really teaching people. They're not going round watching and pointing and showing. They demonstrate; you cook. Nor do they teach people to taste, meaning things are coming out either over or under seasoned.

Anyway I get by, and actually really enjoy it. The class is half men and half womenThey crack the wine open as soon as you get in, and a few of the guys, very jolly anyway, avail themselves of as much as they can. They are all locals with the exception of Hannah, an American who speaks fluent Spanish and helps me out when I am completely confused.

We finally leave around half nine, and are confronted by the most Almighty rainstorm I have ever seen. There are rivers of water rushing down the streets. Hannah and I are heading for the tube, but we don't even reach the end of the block. We later discover that all the lines were flooded anyway. After about half an hour, we manage to hail a cab. It's ten o'clock and we're only four miles from home.

Taxis in Buenos Aires are unbelievably cheap. But that's when the journey isn't interrupted by flooding. In Palermo the water is well over a metre deep in places. The drains are blocked with rubbish, and there is nowhere for the rain to go. The city grinds to an abrupt halt and, completely gridlocked, we are stranded a couple of miles from home. We could walk, but it would involve a lot of swimming. And praying that it was only rainwater we were swimming through. So we decide to sit it out in the cab. It stopped raining for a bit and we stood outside, until our saturated clothes brought on a chill. In the end, it took three and a half hours to get home, and the ride cost 120 pesos, which must be some kind of record for this place.

At half one in the morning then, deliriously tired yet unable to stop myself laughing, I lay my head upon the pillow.

The world screamed out loud at me, and I smiled and screamed right back.