Bondiola

The bondipan, or sandwich de bondiola, is the quintessential Buenos Aires street food. Bondiola is pork shoulder, slow-cooked on a vertical spit or flat grill for hours until the outside is charred and the inside is meltingly tender, then shaved thin and piled into a crusty roll with lemon juice, garlic oil, and sometimes lettuce and tomato. It is sold from carts on street corners throughout the capital, especially late at night, and is the food of taxi drivers, students and anyone needing a cheap, filling meal at 3am. The slow cooking of the pork shoulder is what makes it, the fat rendering and basting the meat until it falls apart under the knife.

Thin, tender, char-edged pork shoulder piled into a crusty roll, the garlic oil and lemon cutting the richness, the meat melting and the bread crunching. Eaten hot on a street corner, the best 3am food in Buenos Aires.

The technique is a long, slow grill of pork shoulder. The shoulder, a tough, fatty cut, is cooked over low to moderate heat for 2 to 3 hours, either on a flat grill or a vertical rotisserie, until the fat renders completely and the meat is fork-tender. The outside develops a charred, salty crust that is shaved off with the meat beneath. The shaved meat is piled onto a split crusty roll, dressed with garlic oil, lemon juice, salt and oregano, and sometimes lettuce, tomato and salsa criolla. The long render of fat is what makes the meat tender, and the charred crust gives the flavour. The bread must be crusty and sturdy enough to hold the generous filling.