Buenos Aires Backyard Parillia

Without a backyard parilla - a built in grill with chimney - a house is not a home in Buenos Aires.

So we had to get a house with a parilla to call home. And this being another gorgeous summer weekend in Buenos Aires we are firing up the grill, popping the vino and taking a dip in the pool while we read, garden, tweet, and twiddle around the house.

Although Los Portenos tend to get lost in all the meats on the fire, in our home without vegetables on the parilla too it's not an authentic Buenos Aires parilla.

Typically we grill organic vegetables grown locally in our little neighborhood, which hasn't changed much in the last 100 years. We live among the descendants of Italian immigrants whose parents came to Buenos Aires about 100-120 years ago. On the parilla the vegetables we include:

• Red pepper - Morrones
• Onion
  
• Zucchini
• Eggplant
• Pumpkin
  
• Garlic

As for the meats, the barrio's Carnicero Orestes, whose been on the corner for 62 years, cut our favorite:

• lomo which is a beef tenderloin
• tapa de quadril which is the rump maybe which cut cooked fat side down is the most tender, also called picana
• chorizo filled by Orestes with meats, no fatty parts to break the teeth
• Whole chicken butchered just right so the poor little guy lays flat out on the grill
  

And a treat, but only a few bites, is provoletta cooked in a cast iron skillet topped with oregano, red pepper and sometimes a tomato.

Buon Appetito!