Every chef across the world pays close attention to what goes into their food, but here at Los Potreros we're just as concerned about what our food is doing to the environment. Our chefs have always had a "no waste" mentality, and now more than ever they're minimising what they throw out and developing a menu that lets them cut down on the little waste we still have. Over the last few months we've tested out some new ideas, and the results have been fantastic.
A huge part of the estancia is the food, and all of it comes back to where we source our produce. With farm-reared beef and pigs and a kitchen garden that stretches across the whole estancia, every season brings us something new.
Spring takes us high into the sierras, where wild asparagus grows on the ridges and watercress fills our streams, while the fruit trees in the garden begin producing their first fruits of the year, usually the apricots. The long summer that follows brings a harvest of plums, peaches, cherries, and so much more. Many of our guests enjoy picking the mirabelles, a sweet yellow plum, down by the waterfall, gorging on them as a mid-morning snack before riding back to the estancia for lunch. Anyone who has visited in December will have seen the abundance of soft fruit tucked into every corner of the farm, which we pick in vast quantities daily. These fruits become the focus of our cakes, desserts, jams, chutneys, flavoured ice creams, and infused gins, and they keep our fruit bowl full for weeks on end.
As summer draws to a close, we turn closer to home and to our vegetable patch, where the root vegetables come into their own. Roasting a mixture of freshly picked vegetables to serve alongside osobuco makes for the perfect dinner on an autumn day. Then come the quinces, found in copious amounts across the farm at Potrero de Niz, and the chefs take on the laborious task of making the pinkest quince jelly, followed by the quince paste the Begg family fondly remember their grandmother making every year.
As the estancia begins to slow down for winter, we get our final harvest of figs, from the trees at our cattle station to a few secret bushes by the swimming pool. We can turn to almost any corner of the estancia to find a hidden delicacy, all of which add to our ever-growing collection of homemade jams and chutneys. Sometimes it's simply a matter of knowing where to look. Just ask Kevin where the best spots are for foraging walnuts, gathering chestnuts, or replanting Jerusalem artichokes.
With an ethos of farm to table, something that matters more now than ever, we feel a real commitment to the land we live on. Between our home-reared beef, free-range eggs, home-grown fruit and vegetables, and a wine cellar stocked with some of the finest malbec and torrontés from local vineyards, we aim to keep everything as local as possible when we can't produce it ourselves.
Looking back on the estancia's history, we're reminded that the gauchos lived simply and were known for their resourcefulness, from crafting their own bridles out of rawhide to preserving meat for their families without fridges or freezers. We've taken inspiration from those roots and begun reintroducing traditional preservation methods, both to develop our menu and to reduce our impact on the environment. At the moment we're trialling a smoking process that cures meat through prolonged exposure to wood smoke. It's proven hugely effective for preservation, and experimenting with different fragrant woods has produced some wonderful flavours we can't wait to share when we reopen in spring.
The kitchen at Los Potreros is truly the heart of the estancia, from guests joining the chefs to learn the art of Argentine cooking to our staff sharing mate together during the day. Everything is cooked from scratch here, from freshly baked bread and cakes to every meal served to guests and staff, and there's always something worth popping your head in to see. Looking ahead, we want to keep developing new ways to make the most of what we grow and rear ourselves, strengthening our ties to the local area and deepening our impact closer to home.
We look forward to welcoming guests back as soon as we can and sharing all our new ideas with you, ideas that will help protect our environment and welcome you back for years to come.