Costillas a la Riojana (Argentine Pork Chops) Recipe

In accordance with the legend, late one evening within the early Nineteen Sixties a gaggle of backpackers arrived unexpectedly at a hostel in Chilecito, a small city within the province of La Rioja that hugs Argentina’s central Andes. They had been hungry and requested Ferrito, who was working the entrance desk, if there was something for dinner. The fridge was filled with disparate components: Just a few pork chops, eggs, potatoes, leftover salsa portuguesa, Swiss chard cream sauce, and peas. He pan-fried the pork chops and eggs, combined the sauces collectively, and topped the whole lot with sautéed peas and potatoes, each oven-roasted and fried. Thus had been born costillas a la riojana.

Ferrito finally opened his personal restaurant, which nonetheless stands at the moment. He refined the dish, eliminating the herby, tomato-based salsa portuguesa, and watched his creation unfold by way of eating places all throughout the nation, altering from province to province. In close by Santiago de Estero, white wine and paprika—a staple ingredient within the bell pepper–producing province—are used to make a thick sauce with the sautéed greens and the fats that runs off the pork chops. In Buenos Aires, the place the dish is most frequently present in old-school neighborhood eating places, pork chops are grilled and topped with sautéed pancetta, peas, onions, and bell peppers, and served with a pair of fried eggs and papas españolas, or skinny rounds of baked or fried potatoes. 

Right here in Buenos Aires, it was by no means a dish that I used to be significantly keen on, principally due to the exclusion of a wealthy sauce that might add complexity to the grilled greens. Plus, the pork chops run the danger of drying out on a scorching grill high. After which I gave it one other probability at Café Argot, a bakery and bistro that sits on a quiet nook in Buenos Aires’ Villa Santa Rita neighborhood. 

“My mom used to make costillas a la riojana once I was a child,” says Alejo Benitez. “On the restaurant, we used a recipe by native chef Gastón Rivera as our base and I performed round with the sauce utilizing my go-to spices: black pepper, Spanish paprika, and crushed purple pepper.” 

Alejo is the co-owner of Café Argot alongside his associate, baker Kenya Ama. The duo dedicates a lot of their menu to reviving Buenos Aires’ Hispano-Italo classics for a brand new technology of diners. The costillas had been a stable instance: juicy pork chops with a satisfying browned crust and sautéed bell peppers and onions overwhelmed down in his white wine–and–purple pepper sauce, which turned to a gravy that sank into the mattress of papas españolas they had been served with. 

The menu modifications often, and thus, I needed to be taught to make it at residence if the expertise was to be repeated. The most important problem was the sauce. Alejo couldn’t bear in mind the precise proportions of wine and seasoning, so I first labored off some recipes I discovered from Santiago de Estero, which use comparable components to construct the sauce. The ultimate end result was a candy-red sauce with a robust peppery style—tart inexperienced bell peppers and candy paprika and purple bell peppers—that jogged my memory an excessive amount of of an empanada filling.

I made a decision to strive once more with one thing extra herby, and used oregano, thyme, and parsley, together with some freshly floor white pepper. With a view to minimize down on an overt bell pepper taste, I minimize extra-thin slices and did the identical for the onions, in hopes that they’d soften down extra and mix with the opposite components. The lengthy braise broke the greens down significantly, they turned candy and barely sticky, and complemented the dish’s pork taste quite than compete in opposition to it. Topped with a fried egg with yolk that spills down into gravy, it is the proper mixture of flavors to sop up with a batch of crisp baked potato slices.