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South America · 34°54′S 56°11′W · Kitchen testing pending

Uruguay

Argentina's neighbour, and its fiercest rival at the grill

The ten

Ranked by what people actually name first

  1. A chivito al plato: a stack of seared thin beef, ham, melted cheese and bacon topped with a fried egg, olives and red pepper strips, over a heap of chips.Chivito40 minThe national sandwich, invented in 1944 when a bar in Punta del Este had no goat. Tenderloin pounded to 4 mm and seared for a minute in foaming butter, stacked with ham, melted cheese, bacon and a runny egg, served in a toasted roll or over a mountain of twice-fried chips.
  2. Cross-cut beef short ribs with a mahogany crust and crisp fat border on an iron grill over glowing embers, with a jar of green chimichurri beside them.Asado de Tira1 hr 10 minCross-cut short ribs over hardwood embers, seasoned with nothing but coarse salt. They cook bone side down for most of the time so the bones carry the heat gently into the meat, then flip once onto the fat cap to crust, and come to the table under a chimichurri made the day before.
  3. A golden round pascualina with a rope-crimped edge, one slice cut away to show a whole baked egg set in a dark green chard and white ricotta filling.Torta Pascualina1 hr 30 minThe Genoese Easter pie that became an everyday Uruguayan staple. A lard-laminated crust around Swiss chard wrung bone-dry and mixed with ricotta and aged cheese, with six raw eggs cracked into wells in the filling so they set into whole yellow discs as it bakes.
  4. A large breaded beef cutlet under a blistered layer of melted mozzarella, ham and tomato sauce dusted with oregano, with a pile of golden chips beside it.Milanesa a la Napolitana50 minA daily obsession on both banks of the Río de la Plata. Lean beef pounded to 4 mm, breaded with a mustard-stabilised egg wash, fried at 180 °C until it crackles, then topped with tomato sauce, ham and mozzarella and run under the grill until the cheese blisters, with hand-cut chips beside it.
  5. Cold slices of rolled matambre showing a spiral of beef around orange carrot, red pepper and whole eggs, fanned on a board beside a bowl of ensalada rusa.Matambre Arrollado2 hr 30 minThe "hunger killer", the thin muscle over the ribs, tamed two ways. Rolled around whole eggs, carrot and red pepper, tied, poached for two hours and pressed cold so it slices into mosaic rounds, or laid flat and braised in milk until the milk reduces to sweet caramelised curds.
  6. A platter of puchero: beef shank with its marrow bone, chorizo rounds, chicken, whole potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkin wedges and corn rounds, with a mug of clear broth beside it.Puchero2 hr 50 minThe winter feast pot. Marrow-bone shanks, short ribs, a stewing hen, chorizos and a slab of bacon started in cold water and held at a sub-boil, with each vegetable entering at the moment its starch can take it. The broth is served first in mugs, then the meats and vegetables on platters.
  7. Golden baked empanadas with braided rope edges on a board, one broken open to show a filling of diced beef, onion, green olive and chopped egg.Empanadas Criollas1 hr 10 minStrictly savoury, no raisins. Beef cut by hand into 5 mm dice, cooked in tallow with a mountain of sweet onion, paprika and cumin, chilled overnight, then folded into a warm lard-and-brine dough, sealed with a rope repulgue and baked hot until the seams blister.
  8. A plate of soft, glossy scrambled eggs bound around crisp golden shoestring potatoes with pink ribbons of ham and green peas, topped with more crisp potato and parsley.Revuelto Gramajo30 minThe Montevideo café scramble. Matchstick potatoes fried crisp, ham ribbons and peas warmed in butter, then eight eggs poured over, a count of three, and the pan pulled off the flame so the residual heat sets them into loose, glossy curds around the crunch.
  9. A large whole fish butterflied open on an iron grill over embers, its white flesh flecked with garlic and oregano, a rosemary sprig and lemon halves beside it.Corvina Negra a la Parrilla55 minBlack drum split open down the backbone and grilled scale side down over hardwood embers, the scales left on as armour against the coals. For half an hour it is basted with warm salmuria, a brine of salt, garlic, oregano and lemon, using a rosemary sprig as the brush, then flipped for three minutes to sear.
  10. Golden blistered pan de grasa loaves with deep slashes beside a basket of flaky salted bizcochos, with a mate gourd and bombilla in the background.Pan de Grasa con Bizcochos1 hr 10 minThe bread of the mate hour. A yeast dough enriched with melted beef tallow, then laminated with more softened tallow, which has a higher melting point than butter and no water, so it folds at room temperature. Half becomes two blistered loaves, half becomes flaky salted bizcochos.

Uruguay has four cattle for every person and eats more grass-fed beef per head than any country on earth. The cooking follows from that. Native hardwood, coronilla and espinillo, is burned down in an iron basket until the embers drop, and the embers are raked under a sloped grate. Cross-cut short ribs go on bone side down with nothing but coarse salt, and the bone carries the heat up into the meat while the fat renders. It is the same fire Argentina cooks over, and the two countries argue about who does it better.

Away from the grill, the cooking is Italian. Genoese immigrants brought the Easter pie that became pascualina, its chard and ricotta filling studded with whole eggs cracked raw into wells before the lid goes on. Milanesa is the Milanese cutlet, pounded thin and breaded, then buried under tomato sauce, ham and mozzarella in a 1940s accident that both sides of the river now claim. Even the café scramble, revuelto gramajo, is a study in egg coagulation: the pan comes off the flame the moment the eggs go in.

The fat that makes Uruguayan baking Uruguayan is beef, not butter. Grasa de pella, the suet from around the kidneys, has a higher melting point than butter and no water in it, so it can be laminated into a yeast dough at room temperature without tearing. That is what gives pan de grasa and the morning bizcochos their shattering crust, and why they taste faintly of roast beef.

The chivito, a stack of pounded tenderloin, ham, bacon, melted cheese, a fried egg and pickled peppers, was invented in 1944 when a customer at a Punta del Este bar asked for baby goat and there was none in the kitchen. It became the national sandwich anyway. And when the winter wind comes off the Atlantic, the answer is puchero, a staged boil of marrow bones, short ribs, hen and chorizo where each vegetable enters the pot at the moment its starch can take it.