MARKETS : Tea and <i> Vigilantes</i>

Continental Gourmet, 12921 Prairie Ave., Hawthorne, (310) 676-5444. Open Monday through Thursday 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., Friday and Saturday 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., Sunday 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. *

It’s just about sunrise when members of the morning crew at Continental Gourmet roll up their sleeves to ready the store’s daily supply of home-style South American foods. Long before the first customer walks through the door, the deli gets humming with the tap-tap-tap of onions being chopped, the low whir of a commercial meat grinder into which sausage is being stuffed and the pulsing sound of a mixer kneading bread dough.

In the store’s minuscule kitchen, Victor Parra and Mauricio Hernandez, who manage the deli department, shape the dough into rolls (for the deli’s sandwiches) and into long French-style loaves. Another crew member rolls out empanada dough, cutting it into circles, wrapping each around a little filling and then crimping the edges closed with a clunky-looking hand-cranked press. Among the first things into the ovens are the facturas (an Argentine equivalent of coffee cake or Danish), which are ready when the first customers arrive around 9 a.m.

Continental is a member of that vanishing breed, the independently owned neighborhood market. It’s the sort of place where customers volunteer advice on the best meats to buy for a proper Argentine barbecue or tell you about the great new Brazilian place they’ve just discovered.

The store’s aisles are close together and filled to capacity, which gives the place a densely packed, slightly claustrophobic quality. At the end of aisle No. 1, a pile of black-and-white leather soccer balls competes for space with Argentine extra-virgin olive oil. The groceries are well chosen and similar to what you’ll find in other well-kept South American markets. But it’s the deli and the meat department that draw Latin Americans from around the city.

Continental is now 30 years old, but it wasn’t until about nine years ago--when Roberto Mortara bought the market--that it began cooking up its mostly Argentine specialties. A refugee from the restaurant business, Mortara redirected his food passion to the store’s deli. He added Argentine-style pizzas, cooked dishes and a wide variety of baked goods.

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In his daily uniform, an immaculate white manager’s smock, the silver-haired Mortara is always ready to discuss food. He is fond of using the word natural to describe what he likes. He’s not referring to organic or completely unprocessed foods, you understand, but foods that taste of their principal ingredient: neither too spicy, too sweet nor too salty, preferably as if they came from an Argentine grandmother’s kitchen. In the end, he maintains, “It’s freshness that really helps food taste good.” That’s why the store bakes empanadas all day long; the bakers wait until a tray is almost gone before putting another into the oven.

In a lilting Italian-inflected Spanish accent, Mortara says his mother, who was from Turin, Italy, was responsible for shaping his tastes. “She was a marvelous cook,” he says, rolling his eyes upward to feign a slight swoon at the memory.

The family immigrated to Argentina when he was 7, and Mortara became a mechanical engineer. When he moved to Los Angeles, jobs in the aerospace industry were evaporating. On impulse, without any experience in the restaurant business, Mortara bought a pizzeria one week and then, with a partner, another one the next. “I was convinced I could make pizza with good ingredients, like those we had in Argentina,” he says, “and that it would be a success.”

When reality hit, Mortara left the business in the hands of his partners and flew to Argentina, where he immersed himself in learning pizza production. (On another trip he learned all about bakeries.) Mortara’s Pizza Co.’s eventually grew to seven outlets with a central commissary and an Italian restaurant. But the perils of maintaining a delivery service--thefts, accidents and lawsuits--ultimately pushed Mortara out of the business.

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Continental’s deli, now the sole heir to Mortara’s experience, concentrates on foods that homesick South Americans love. Every afternoon, a fresh batch of Swiss sandwiches is prepared. On the stove there may be a pot of dulce de leche , a pudding-like confection of sweet, caramelized milk. After the lunch rush, one of the deli crew will begin to saute onions in olive oil for tomorrow’s empanada fillings. It doesn’t matter what time you come in the door of this unpretentious market; something wonderful will surely be cooking.

SHOPPING LIST

* Swiss Sandwiches: Anyone who knows Buenos Aires will tell you that the heart of its social life is in its confiterias. Lining the city’s broad boulevards--which were designed to look Parisian-- confiterias are the equivalent of French sidewalk cafes. They’re where the populace gossips, debates politics and watches the world go by. Argentines spend so much time in confiterias that they need more than coffee and mate tea for sustenance. To keep up their strength, they eat Swiss sandwiches.

Why Swiss sandwiches? It’s the Continental influence on the cuisine--which is to say there’s a mix of foods from all over Europe eaten in Argentina.

Cut into dainty triangles or thin bars, Swiss sandwiches come in many varieties. One has multiple layers of thinly sliced bread filled with good boiled ham and Finnish lappi cheese or provolone. Hearts of palm and Spanish pimientos layered with sliced ham and egg salad fill another variety.

Continental goes so far as to make a special bread for these sandwiches. It is a huge Pullman loaf, about 10 inches square and 29 inches long. The ultra-thin slices cut from these loaves look like handkerchiefs. The cooks layer the slices with their fillings, then quarter them and stack several at a time into packages. Although Swiss sandwiches are delicious cold when freshly made, many people love them grilled or toasted, Mortara says. And they are eaten any time of day, even for breakfast--which is when some Buenos Aires natives may be getting ready to sleep.

* Facturas: Another confiteria standby, facturas make up a beloved category of sweet and savory pastries. Cuernitos , similar to croissants, accompany strong cups of Argentine coffee in the morning. The same dough is made into vigilantes (policemen)--flaky rolls that come topped with a small dollop of custard cream. A round version of vigilantes is called redonditas.

I’m particularly fond of pasta frolla , which is an Argentine take on Italian fruit or jam tarts. The Italian pasta frolla is a buttery, slightly sweet pastry that is rolled out and used for tarts. The Argentine version--or at least what’s called pasta frolla at Continental--is a flat yeast bread of slightly sweet, buttery dough rolled out, slathered with guava or quince paste and decorated with a lattice top of the same dough. The fruit paste, which is sold as a dessert in the deli, has an intense fruitiness, not nearly as sweet as conventional jams and jellies.

For the palmeras , those double-rolled and sliced puff pastries that the French call palmiers , the bakers use real butter and sprinkle thinly shaved almonds as well as the customary sugar over the dough before it’s rolled. The nuts brown slightly and turn deliciously crunchy.

* Empanadas: Argentines are mad for the pastry turnovers and little pies called empanadas ; in recent years, cafes where they are made and served have sprung up in Argentine cities. These fabricas de empanadas do a sort of California Pizza Kitchen version of the traditional pies, in that the fillings often depart considerably from the old-fashioned beef or vegetable mixtures.

Continental’s empanadas stick pretty close to tradition; they’re baked rather than deep-fried because most of Mortara’s customers worry about eating too much greasy food. But the deli is happy to deep-fry empanadas on special order.

Beef empanadas have a filling of freshly ground meat, cooked picadillo -style with onions, a little chopped egg and olives. An alternate filling has freshly ground chicken mixed with ricotta and Parmesan cheese.

Continental makes fish empanadas with filete de merluza (mackerel) during Semana Santa , a week before Easter. It’s the only time of year these are sold.

* Alfajores: Sandwiched together Oreo-style with a rich caramelized milk filling called dulce de leche , alfajores are popular pastries in many Latin American countries including Chile, Uruguay and Colombia. Many regions have their own version of the recipe.

Continental makes two regional styles. The first, cordobeses , look like two large, slightly upturned crackers stuck together with caramel. “The pleasure of this pastry, for those who love it,” says Mortara, “is the contrast between the very sweet and unsweet elements.”

The same dulce de leche is encased in tender, sweet cornstarch-based biscuits for the alfajores de maizena. Rimmed with a thin fringe of grated coconut, these have a familiar-looking shape, more like a European cookie.

* Pionono: Like the cordobeses , pionono provides a contrast of plain and intensely sweet tastes: a bland, eggy sheet cake, slathered with dulce de leche , rolled up jellyroll-style. The cake’s name is a corruption of the Italian Uncle Pio ( Pio Nono ). Mortara advises that at home, many people like to sprinkle the cake with a blend of spirits such as Marsala, Moscato, sweet vermouth and Cognac.

* Matambre: A colorful mosaic of vegetables, chopped hard-cooked eggs and mortadella rolled into a thin flank steak, matambre is Argentina’s national cold cut. Thin slices of matambre , a swirl of color on the plate, make a dramatic-looking first course. Roughly translated, matambre means “hunger killer.” And at Continental it may be made with a wrapping of chicken instead of beef. A long, slow baking tenderizes the meat and keeps the stuffing moist.

* Lengua en Vinagreta: Meat, meat and more meat--that’s the best way to describe the Argentine diet. Before the typical main course of steaks or roasts, you may be served an appetizer of lengua en vinagreta --tender slices of boiled beef tongue marinated in a seasoned oil and vinegar dressing.

* Pizzas and Fugazzetta: With high edges and a rich cheesy top, Argentine-style pizza resembles the pies that made Chicago famous. But these are simpler, more genteel--pizza for purists. Baked in a metal form that resembles a cake pan, the medium-thick crust holds several ladles worth of Continental’s homemade sauce and lots of grated cheese. If you want to bake your pizza at home, Continental’s pizza crusts, sauce and cheese are available separately. Fugazzetta is an Argentine-style sauce-less pizza topped with tender sauteed onions--a specialty cooked only on request.

* Tamales: As Continental’s neighborhood has become more international, so have its offerings. Lately it’s been selling Peruvian and Guatemalan tamales. Both have a similar masa covering--smooth and light and very different from the texture of Mexican tamales. The more expensive Peruvian tamales hold more chicken and are double-wrapped with banana leaves, while for the Guatemalan version, a savory pudding-like masa exterior holds a few morsels of chicken, wrapped in banana leaf-lined foil packet. Both are delicious.

* Ravioli: In the freezer case across from the butcher department look for home-style ravioli from La Traviata (Mortara’s former restaurant) and from Casablanca restaurant in Hermosa Beach. There are plump, spinach-filled ravioli as well as daintier chicken, beef or ricotta-filled ones.

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CHEESE

Continental’s deli has few surprises among its fairly standard cheese assortment but does carry several Argentine-made European-style cheeses.

* Sardo: Formed into straw-colored wheels, Sardo is Argentina’s answer to Italian hard cheeses such as Romano and Parmesan. It was inspired by Pecorino Sardo , the sheep’s milk grana -style cheese of Sardinia. But Sardo is made from cow’s milk. Roberto describes this cheese as having the full, sweet taste of the milk. Primarily, it’s used for cooking and for grating as a garnish. Sardo is sold in chunks, but the store will grate it for you.

* Regganito: Also an aged cow’s milk grating cheese, this one comes in a distinctive, tall drum-shaped wheel. Its taste is slightly more mellow than Sardo.

* Mar de Plata: With its basketball shape and red wax covering, Mar de Plata cheese resembles a Dutch Gouda but is slightly creamier and less sharply flavored.

* Teleme: South Americans have discovered a delicious replacement for the double- crema cheese they eat for dessert with fruit or fruit pastes in their homeland. It’s Peluso’s Teleme , a soft creamy Brie-style cheese with a delicate flavor and lush texture. Although it’s not an Italian cheese, Teleme is made by an Italian family with a small cheese-making operation in Northern California. The cheese makers can’t say where the recipe first came from, but Peluso’s Teleme has been distributed in California since 1925.

* Special Grated Blend: Continental’s blend of grated cheeses works if you’re in a hurry. The blend is a mixture of domestic Romano and Parmesan with Sardo. It’s less expensive than the imported Italian cheeses and the blending produces a good, full flavor.

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MEAT

When cooking meats, the barbecue rules in Argentina. Everywhere you go in the country a modern-day version of gaucho cuisine is served at asadores or parillas. The asadores are where large hunks of beef or smaller, whole animals are skewered onto sword-like stakes and roasted in front of a charcoal-fueled fire. Parillas , on the other hand, have giant horizontal charcoal barbecues for grilling steaks. Years ago there was a clear distinction between these restaurants; that distinction is now blurring.

At Continental, the meat is butchered in the South American style or to order, if you like. Beef can be cut into bife de lomo (a filet mignon), bife de costilla (a rib eye), bife de costilla con lomo (a porterhouse or T-bone), bife de quadril (a top sirloin), and bife de chorizo (which has nothing to do with sausage but is similar to a New York steak). “If you cook the steaks over charcoal, you brush them with chimichurri sauce,” says Roberto. “But if you grill them in a pan, you just use a little butter.”

Continental’s butchers bottle and sell their own chimichurri sauce. The mixture of oil and vinegar loaded with parsley, garlic and herbs is Argentina’s all-purpose seasoning.

Parillada: There’s a strict protocol for what is included in the parillada-- the mixed grill as it is served in Ecuador and Argentina. A variety of muscle meats, offal and sausages are always combined. The muscle meats are: tira de asado , a crosswise slice of short ribs; vaccio , known in English, according to the butcher, as “flap meat,” and entrana or skirt, a thin piece of muscle connected to the ribs.

Sweetbreads ( molejas ) are also de rigueur. These must have the membrane removed and should be sliced horizontally so they lie flat on the grill. Another requisite offal is chinchulines , a part of the beef intestine.

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SAUSAGE

Continental’s butchers make their own sausages, which include:

* Salchichas Criollas: Mildly seasoned, thin pork and beef sausages made in one continuous link.

* Chorizos: Argentine-style chorizos are rather similar to sweet Italian sausages flavored with wine, oregano and garlic but without the fennel that Italian butchers often use. And now Continental makes an Argentine chorizo with chicken.

* Morcilla: This parillada specialty is similar to a Spanish blood sausage.

* Milanesa: Strictly South American comfort food, these thinly cut beefsteaks, breaded with egg, parsley and fresh bread crumbs are descendants of veal scaloppine. The butchers will prepare pan-ready milanesa for you.