I grew up on a large farm in Central Argentina, and I was always intrigued by the way the gauchos live on the Pampas- free souls, usually alone, in remote areas of the countryside and always on horseback.
They cooked everything over live fire, frying steaks, making stews, and cooking wild rabbits for example. Asados were only for special occasions, usually on long working days, or when there were large movements of cattle across different farms.
An asado for a gaucho is beef on the bone cooked over live fire. The meat might be asado de costilla, thin flank, matambre, flank, or vacio, cooked with salt or sometimes salmuera which is a mixture of salt and water. Believe me, those were the best asados. The meat was sometimes a bit chewy, but so tasty that I still remember it even now.
I’ve being doing asados in peoples’ gardens for the last five years. I’ve also done a few pop-ups, always trying to cook the Argentinian way, and trying to transmit my knowledge and passion of cooking large pieces of meat over fire.
Last year while being interviewed for The Times for an article about live fire, I heard about Temper restaurant opening in Soho, London, and applied to work there. I’ve being cooking on the grills there for over a year now, while also doing a few asados, working for Francis Mallmann at his epic events, competing in Grillstock (invited by Simon Dyer), doing a demo at The Big Meat festival and also at Meatopia where I was invited by Chef Lima de Luca to be part of his team.
Now I am enjoying doing most of the butchery at Temper, breaking down the carcasses in a more economical way and trying to discover the best cooking methods for different muscles as well as new recipes.
Next year looks busy, with lots of projects, always around fire- “Game of Tongs” (thanks Si), some events for Temper restaurant which will be a surprise (or not?), as well as a few personal projects which I can’t disclose at the moment. Some of them will mean I will have to fly to the continent, others are near by- of course I haven’t told my wife just yet about my ultra busy 2018.
The most important thing for me is to collaborate and share knowledge with other asadores.
Happy Fires...
Twitter: @travellingaucho
Martin
Martin Anderson
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