But honestly Phil, IMHO, most Argies, and probably expats too, don't have the time or the purchasing power to buy these exotic ingredients and the specialized equipment that you use...,but for a restaurant, check, or a chef school, double check! I compliment you on your originality, discipline and attention to detail...
Lard..really?
Yes, but the more people who cook things like this, the less expensive the ingredientes become and hopefully one day we wont even need to go to barrio chino.
However that said, this dish isn't really that expensive and you only really need to go two places, incase anyone is interested....
Barrio Chino
Girgolas - 180 / kg
King Trumpets 160 / kg Sounds expensive but these are mushrooms, not lead weights they're not very dense.
Shallots $18-20 pesos for the bag, you'll use about half.
Thyme $8 - you'll use 10% at most. Plus thyme should be in your windowsill herb garden anyway, disco/jumbo actually sell living herbs in little planters, almost idiot proof (almost because I killed my rosemary, I'm a special idiot though) .
If you haven't been saving your mushroom stems in the freezer to make mushroom stock well start now! But you can buy dried shitake & crimini stems for suuuuuper cheap (since this is the part normally thrown away) in casa china on arribeños.
Supermarket:
Portobellos $80/kg
Flour - Precio Cuidado
Lard - Precio Cuidado
Salt - Precio Cuidado (although I recommend going to any dietetica in the city and picking up a bag of coarse sea salt, 8-10 pesos for 500g, almost the same price as the regular salt and much tastier, its in a metallic package)
Pancetta - $110/kg and you don't need that much 250 g should easily be enough for 20 empanadas (i think)
Marsala (not madeira as I erroneously posted above) - Obviously not using the real stuff, I use bottom shelf El Abuelo 35 pesos and your only going to use a little bit of the bottle which will last at least a year open.
2 Eggs - $3.
