Chivito Canadiense!

Chivito Canadiense is a special dish found in Uruguay that can most easily be described as a 'steak sandwhich' Uruguayan style.  Literally translated, a chivito is (from what I understand) a baby goat, Canadian style.  I have read many stories as to where the origins of it come from and most point to a blackout, an Argentinian looking for a meal reminiscent of home at a local Montevidian restuarant and what they produced for her instead.  This became known as el Chivito.  There are endless variations to preparing the chivito but I have chosen a simple version.  I beleive the reason they decided to name it after my country of my birth is probably because of the use of Canadian bacon / ham.  Since I hate ham however, I chose bacon for this post. ;)

What you will need:

Bread (either a hard roll or hamburger style bread)

Beef cut into 1/4 cut steaks (filet mingon, or for you Uruguayans you need a couple churrascos.)

Bacon strips

Tomatoes, sliced

Lettuce

Onions, chopped

Red Bell Peppers, chopped

Mozzarella cheese, sliced thinly
Sliced Pickles

Mayonnaise, to taste

Method:

First things first, you want to cut your bread in half so it will be ready to house your meat and veggies.  Second take a frying pan and start to cook your bacon, sliced onions and chopped red peppers.

 

If the peppers or onions need more time you should be able to remove the bacon and continue cooking the rest in the remaining bacon fat.  Once the veggies are cooked to your taste (onions should be golden brown) then you can use the remaining grease to cook the Churrascos.  Once they are about half way cooked to your liking, salt them on each side and place your mozzarella on top so it can start melting. 

Now comes the fun part!  Place your churrasco onto the sliced bread followed by your bacon, onions, red peppers, tomatoes, pickles and lettuce.  On the other side of your bread you can spread some mayonnaise and close it up!  Slice it in the middle and you are ready to serve!

If you want to make this a complete meal, traditionally you would serve this with french fries or potato salad.  Hopefully you enjoy this guy!  As I mentioned earlier, you can put several variations onto this depending on your tastes, from a fried egg to pickled beets.  Enjoy!

Light tent tests and updates!

As you may have noticed, I haven't updated the blog recently.  I was swamped with work for 2 months and then promptly took a two week vacation, however I haven't forgotten about my blog!  I have been trying to think of ways to make the blog a little easier on the eyes.  Particularly in terms of my picture taking abilities!  Previously I was using a point and shoot Canon camera, but I decided to upgrade since that one was getting quite old.  No, no, I didn't get a digital SLR or anything fancy like that, but instead another another point and shoot style Canon (the newest edition).

The other thing I got was a brand new light tent!  The reason for that was just to try and improve lighting conditions, etc, in my pictures.  My kitchen (in case you haven't noticed) has absolutely TERRIBLE lighting in it.  Honestly I haven't really figured out how I am gonna showcase any of my process shots using the light tent but we'll see.  I did a couple of very quick tests with my new camera and tent and it gave me the opportunity to showcase the new (old) books my father got for me in Uruguay.  It is quite obvious that I need to steam the carpets that come with the tent but this was just a quick test.  Ironically, I am using the WORST lights I could have ever stolen from work. ;)  They are absolutely terrible, but worked for the test.   See below! 

Oh also, I have made a little page on facebook for the blog, if your interested, please 'Like' it !  It is of course called 'I Cook!'.