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Recipes with beef dripping

5 recipes that use beef dripping, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Bizcochitos de grasa, takes 60 minutes. It is most often cooked with cumin, plain flour and sweet paprika.

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Bizcochitos de grasa

A paper bag of bizcochitos de grasa sits next to the mate gourd in kitchens, offices and roadside service stations across Argentina, from Buenos Aires to the Andes. These little rounds, a couple of bites each, are layered with beef fat, so they flake and crumble, salty and plain enough to eat by the dozen with bitter mate in the afternoon. The fat is rendered beef fat (grasa vacuna), so they are not vegetarian; ask your butcher for dripping or render suet yourself. A dough worked too warm is the mistake that robs them of their layers; the fat melts into it instead of staying in sheets. Chef's tip: chill the dough for 10 minutes between folds whenever it starts to feel greasy, and prick each round right through so it puffs in flakes rather than domes.

60 minArgentinianBaking
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Tamales norteños

Families in Salta and Jujuy make tamales by the hundred, usually for the national holidays or for the winter fiestas in the Quebrada, with everyone at the table spreading dough onto husks, spooning in filling and tying parcels. The northern Argentine tamal is different from the Mexican one: the dough is made from finely ground white or yellow maize cooked with squash and beef fat, and the filling is a red, peppery mix of beef (traditionally from the head or charqui, dried beef) with onion, ají molido and cumin. Each parcel is folded and tied with a strip of husk into a little bundle, then boiled. Expect a long, hard afternoon, but they freeze well. Look for dried corn husks and fine maize flour in Latin American shops; masa harina also works. The filling must reach 71 °C, as for any mince, before it goes into the husks. Dough that is too dry is the usual mistake and cracks as it cooks; it should feel like soft polenta. Chef's tip: soak the husks in hot water for 30 minutes so they fold without splitting.

180 minArgentinianMeatGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Empanadas cordobesas

Sweet and salty is the whole point here. Córdoba's empanadas hold a filling of beef, onion, a little potato, raisins and olives, and the moment they come out of the fryer they get a sprinkle of sugar that melts into the crackly crust. They turn up at birthday parties, school fundraisers and the patriotic holidays of 25 May and 9 July, often next to a bowl of locro. If the sugar on top sounds odd, try one: the contrast with the cumin and paprika is the local hallmark. The error that ruins them is frying in oil that isn't hot enough, which leaves them pale and greasy; keep it at 175 °C. Chef's tip: dust with sugar within seconds of draining, while the surface is still glistening, or it won't stick.

90 minArgentinianSnacks & Starters
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Empanadas mendocinas

Mendoza's empanadas are all about juice. The filling uses roughly as much onion as beef, cooked only briefly so it stays sweet and wet, then gets folded with hard-boiled egg and a whole green olive in every pastry; the dough is a tender one made with beef fat. They come out of wood ovens across the province for Sundays, family gatherings and the grape harvest, and are eaten by hand, leaning forward, with a tomato and onion salad on the side. The classic error is filling the dough while the meat is still warm: the fat melts, the pastry turns soggy and the seal splits in the oven. Cool the filling completely, ideally overnight. Chef's tip: cut the beef into small cubes with a knife instead of buying mince; it stays juicier and gives the bite a Mendoza cook expects.

90 minArgentinianSnacks & Starters
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Empanadas tucumanas

Tucumán takes its empanadas so seriously that the town of Famaillá holds a national empanada festival every September, and judges count the pleats. The local style is small and juicy, filled with beef cut by hand with a knife (never minced), lots of white onion and spring onion, cumin, paprika and hard-boiled egg, and the dough is made with beef fat. They are baked very hot, traditionally in a clay oven, until blistered, and eaten standing up at peñas, football matches or family lunches, a drop of lemon squeezed in. The beef filling must reach 71 °C; it cooks first in the pan and again in the oven. A dry filling is the mistake to avoid: cook the onion slowly and let the filling cool so the fat sets, which turns to juice in the oven. Chef's tip: chill the filling overnight if you can; cold filling is easier to spoon and the empanadas come out juicier.

105 minArgentinianSnacks & Starters
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Goes well with beef dripping