Tango in London – What, where, why?

I had my first experience with the tango earlier this year, in an atmospheric dance hall in Buenos Aires. Drunk on the sights and sounds of the capital, and a fair quantity of ‘fernet cola’, I tripped into a beginners’ class expecting to wow waiting crowds of tourists with my innate ability.

I was paired with Craig, a lanky 16 year old from San Franciso. He wasn’t exactly the partner I was envisaging, and as his clammy palm pawed my back, I realised this wasn’t going to be the dance I was expecting either. We staggered onto the floor to the opening strains of the bandoneón, I gingerly wrapped my arms around his back and we were off. He stamped on my foot, I head-butted his chin, he yanked at my arms and we got more and more flustered. Not in the good way.

There is nothing quite like the physical and emotional intimacy of the tango: Depending on who you ask the dance is an embrace, an extended sex act or metaphorical foreplay. I think Craig and I would have preferred to stop at a handshake (never overestimate the emotional range of the British).

Despite my intial ineptitude though, I ploughed onwards with the tango. I never nurtured a real skill for the dance but did start to really enjoy it and would love to pick it up again.

Not me or Craig, dancing the tango

Fortunately London seems packed out with places to dance, including both classes and milongas. While classes are led by teachers and involve learning steps, milongas are open dances which can be formal or informal. You don’t need a partner to dance in a milonga, just show up, and hope you don’t meet Craig…or me! Here’s a mini run down of places to get started:

Tanguito is based in Shoreditch and seems a great place to get started in the milonga scene. They’ve joined up with with Tango in the Light top host ‘milonguitos’ (milongas for beginners). The next one is on Friday 8th and promises to be a welcoming start for beginners of all dancing abilities

Carablanca is the oldest tango venue in London and according to Priscilla Pollara, writing for the Telegraph in August. it comes with all the elegance and tradition you’d expect. Their Christmas party this Friday on Conway Street promises free drinks and empanadas (you had me at free, Carablanca) and includes both a class and performance by some tango greats.

Tango Soul also looks good, claiming to be the only tango school in London taught by professional argentine choreographers. Their image gallery is certainly impressive and they hold classes three times a week followed by a free half hour practice.

Social enterprise, The Tango Club, offers an interesting range of classes and events and boasts a beautiful wooden floor to dance on. It’s based in the Leather Market in London Bridge and hosts a ‘Tango tea’ event every first Sunday of the month with traditional argentine cakes. It’s relaxed ‘Milonga8’ every Friday also looks like a fun and informal tango night out.

Hopefully this is a starting point for the tango fans, and hopefully I'll soon get a chance to go to one and give you a full review!

In the meantime, check out my friend Charlie's blog for someone with very recent tango experience!

Beso beso chao!

Cooking empanadas

I've been craving an empanada ever since I returned to London. These mini pasties, normally filled with beef, ham and cheese or chicken are a staple in Argentina. I ate them all the time in Buenos Aires and even made this video for the Argentina Independent. But despite my enthusiasm for all things pastry/meat based, I've only cooked empanadas a couple of times, and always under the watchful eye of my argentine flatmate.

With Miguel long gone and google search my only aide I began my London empanada adventure this weekend. I had hoped to buy the 'tapas' (the pastry cases) but I couldn't find them anywhere so I started from scratch.

After some loose interpretation of the words 'rolling pin' and 'scales' (wine bottle/glass), I started with the dough.

The first recipe I found called for:

3 cups flour (plus a little more for kneading)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold water
1 egg
1 egg white
1 teaspoon vinegar
3 tablespoons shortening

I decided to use butter instead of shortening (mainly as I had no idea what shortening was) and red wine vinegar instead of normal (because it's all I had in my cupboard). In one bowl I mixed the eggs, water and vinegar and in the other, the flour and salt.

Separating the ingredients

Next, the recipe told me to 'cut the shortening into the flour mix with a pastry blender or two butter knives'. Assuming this meant 'combine the butter and flour' I ploughed onwards. Lacking butter knives and a pastry blender, I went for the next best option: My hands. It's what Nigella would do. Probably.

I rubbed together the chunks of butter with the flour then cut the mixture in a criss cross motion using two knifes. I ended up with a mixture vaguely reminiscent of crumble.

Mixing the flour and butter (or shortening...)

 Next it was time to combine the eggs. Still channeling the cake baking method, I made a well in the middle of the flour and poured them in. The recipes I checked all advised the use of a fork to mix them into a 'stiff' mixture. I decided to use two forks- for no reason other than I'd already used two knives and wanted to continue with the Noah's ark theme.

The Noah's Ark fork technique

When combined, I covered my work surface (and kitchen, and Tshirt) in flour and started kneading the dough. It went better than expected, considering my rather slap dash approach to measurement, and I ended up with a firm, smooth dough. Next it was time to wrap it in plastic and chill it for an hour.

the dough - ready to chill

After removing the dough from the fridge I rolled it out. The dough seemed surprisingly elastic-getting it thin enough to put ingredients on was tricky-but eventually it was ready to roll (pun intended). Empanadas are quite small- they normally fit in the palm of your hand-so I chose the smallest bowl I had and cut around it.

Cutting the circles

Then I decided in ingredients. For my first batch I thought I'd go with ham and cheese as they're more straightforward than the mince mixture, and less liquidy. When I've perfected the technique I'll graduate to more exotic flavours. I placed the filling in the middle of the circle, wet the outside with water and folded it in half.

Filling the empanada

Something I really want to master is the folding of the edges of the empanadas. But you know what they say about walking and running...so I began by using a fork to press together the sides. I couldn't resist having a go at the more experimental latticework though. In Argentina, different empanadas were denoted by different lattice patterns. Take aways came with mini pictures showing which filling corresponded to which pattern. Obviously I'm not quite at the coding level yet, but a chef can dream....

I brushed my creations with egg wash and put them in the oven at 190 degrees. Twenty five minutes later, I took out my fresh empanadas. Success!




The finished product!



The pastry could have been thinner but they were light and fluffy and just the right level of gooey. I also went out on a limb with an experimental vegetarian flavour- spinach, cherry tomato and basil- which actually turned out to be my favourite.


Ham and cheese (jamon y queso)


I'm pretty proud of my efforts, though there's definitely ready for improvement. I may not be quite ready for a Borough Market stall but by next week? Quizas....until then though,

Beso Beso chao!

Latino News in London – two birds, one free newspaper

 Since returning from Buenos Aires there’s no doubt that my Spanish has taken a turn for the worse. As last’s week foray into the world of casual cookery conversation proved, I need a little practice.

While in Argentina I had visions of coming home and moving in with a house of Spanish people. In reality, I moved in with my British friend in a nice flat in North London, and my Spanish ability hasn’t exactly soared….

But yesterday I stumbled across the Latino Times, a free newspaper available on my doorstep. It’s a great paper for practising Spanish as its pages are peppered with small ‘habla ingles?’ boxes (just in case you hadn’t grasped the full implications of the on-going FARC conlict in spanish…).

I really like it as a mix of Latin American news as well as news from around the UK. Its ‘affairs’ aren’t that ‘current’ – the paper comes out twice a week – but it’s still good practice for both my news and spanish language skills.

So what’s in the paper this week? Colombia features heavily, with President Juan Manuel Santos trying to resolve long-standing land disputes. The government is hoping to return stolen land to its displaced population. It’s been huge problem since the early ‘90s and Colombia now has the world’s second biggest internally displaced population after Sudan according to the UN.

Ecuador is also making records: The country has made it into the Guinness book of records for collecting the most plastic bottles for recycling in a fifteen day period. Almost two million bottles were collected at a value of $31,000, some of which will go towards sustainability projects in Yasuni national park.

Ecuador is well known for its commitment to sustainability being the first country to enshrine environmental rights in its constitution. This Guardian article is a good discussion of the history (I’m afraid Latino Times doesn’t cover everything…)

Reading in spanish is always a great way to practice. Hopefully by page ten I'll be 100% fluent. I'll let you know how that goes...

Latin American food shopping at La Bodeguita

Yesterday I went to La Bodeguita in Elephant and Castle to look at their range of Latin American foods. It has to be said that when I was there, most Argentine food seemed to me to revolve around meats and sweets. Despite their reputation for feistiness and passion, it was hard to find a food stuff which wasn’t beige and dusted with sugar. Unless it was brown, and coated in cheese…

I never did work out how Spanish women stay so thin while mainlining medialunes (delicious sticky croissants) but it’s definitely a mystery worth solving – they really are delicious. Obviously there’s nothing wrong with sugar and steak– clearly there’s a lot right with them - but yesterday reminded me of all the other interesting Latin American delicacies.

La Bodequita is hidden at the top of the sprawling Elephant and Castle shopping centre. It’s not particularly pretty but packed with shops selling foods, fabrics and interesting things from all over the world.

the tempting food shelves at La Bodeguita

The shop– a cross between a deli and a take away kiosk –  is packed out with exciting foods. The menu on the walls offers hot foods like empanadas (small meat pasties), chicharron con arepa (pork with a homemade corn bread) and chorizo. You can also order patatas rellenas – a famous Peruvian dish. Literally meaning ‘filled potatoes’, these look a bit like dumplings and are essentially mashed potato stuffed with a filling of meat and onions, whole olives, hard boiled eggs and other spices wrapped in pastry or deep fried. A cholesterol nightmare maybe, but a really really tasty one.

The menu of traditional South American food

The people before me in the La Bodequita queue all ordered in rapid Spanish and took away hot empanadas or mysterious meats from the counter. My own attempts at Spanish were not exactly embraced wholeheartedly but I came away with two empanadas nonetheless. 


The counter at La Bodeguita

The flavouring was good – particularly in the ‘pollo’ (chicken) empanada, but I prefer mine with a lighter pastry casing and am planning on cooking some this week. Unfortunately my attempts at castellano cooking conversation didn’t go down that well with the waitress so it looks like I’ll be scouring the city for empanada ‘tapas’ (the pasty cases surrounding the meat) alone this week. Do get in touch with any suggestions for my English empanada cooking adventure!

Pollo and carne empanadas

¡Ché!

I recently returned from a three month stay in Buenos Aires where I was working for an English language newspaper called ‘the Argentina Independent’.

Despite my initially patchy grasp on Spanish, or castellano, I had an incredible time. In fact if I hadn’t been forced home by a severe lack of pesos and an upcoming masters degree I might still be there – perfecting my flexible use of the word ‘siii’...

Since coming home I’ve missed the noisy chaos of Buenos Aires: I loved its colourful streets full of honking cars, endless protest rallies and blaring cumbia music. The overcrowded journey to work was slalom between brashly coloured meat and sweet stalls, filling the city with an aroma of frying sugar and/ or cheese, and don’t get me started on tango (literally, don’t – I can’t do it…)

Without getting overly romantic about the Argentine capital – after all, the sickly sugar smell barely covers the equally strong aroma of rubbish – it is a great place and I am desperate to get back to South America and see more.

However I just started a journalism masters at Kingston University, so for now for now I’m based in London. With that in mind, I’ve decided to track down the best of Latin America in London. I’m going to be seeking out the best in food, film, art and dance – I’ll also try out any suggestions and recommendations, including tango...