Buen Provecho!

This blog highlights food from the street, home, restaurant and of course some quintessential souveniers to take home. I am paying homage to the Completo, Bife de Pobre, and the Lomito in their own blog posts.

With excellent produce, fresh herbs and fantastic seafood, you would think that Chile may be a gastronomic paradise. Well, not exactly. The Chilean kitchen has taken a more simple and humble course. What it may lack in complexity and spice, it compensates with delicious honest food. Most dishes are largley based around hearty combinations of corn, meat and potatoes - the potato was actually discovered here 13,000 years ago, according to scientists. There is even an indeginous tradition of cooking potatoes and veg underground, like at our Maori Easter dinner, a tradition that spread all the way across the pacific islands to New Zealand. Like with the preservation of the Carmaniere grape, Chile has historically been isolated from livestock disease by the wall of the Andes mountains and the pacific coastline. There are ancient breeds of horses, for example, that live to this day.

SANTIAGO STREET FOOD

Empenadas: I am sure you are already aware of this savory pastry turnover. However I just cannot stress how important they are to daily life here in Santiago and greater South America. They are cheap, filling and empenadas are absolutely everywhere. The larger pastry version is more popular in Chile than the fried version and the best place to go is your local panederia, or bakery. You can distinguish which ones are meat, cheese, vegetable, or even seafood by how the baker has folded or shaped his empenadas. The only problem is that each baker has his own shapes that you must learn.

The classic Chilean meat empenada is filled with meat, gravy, onion, one olive and half a boiled egg. However an empenada can also be filled with leftovers from whatever was cooking yesterday.

Humitas: These are the Chilean equivalent of tamales. Here the humita always contains mashed corn instead of the meat you find in other South American countries. The ancient precolumbian recipe combines basil, milk and smoked chili wrapped in a corn leaf for steaming.

Huesillo: Go to any street corner and you will find this sweet syrupy drink in a large plastic cup for 400 pesos. At the top is a boiled, dried peach or two. At the bottom is a bead of toasted wheat corn. The combination is bizzare to say the least - you must try it.

CHILEAN COMFORT FOOD

Chances are that the first thing you will see on your table is a lovely basket of breads with the addictive Pebre sauce, as seen in the photo below. This salsa-like dipping sauce almost always arrives on the table when you order food or drink. It's finer and simpler than salsa, more like a pico de gaillo with corriander, onion, oil, garlic and ground or pureed Aji pepper. It can also be spread on sizzling meats from the bbq. Pebre is a good representation of the simplicity in chilean cooking in general where food is not complex, nor spicy.


Cazuela: I first learned about this hearty meat stew in the Spanish classroom at Tandem. To my great fortune, our teacher spent an entire morning lesson teaching us about food and restaurants. I was STARVING by lunch hour and went immediately around the corner to Bar Liguria to try their Casuela. I joined a businessmen up at the bar and before you knew it they brought over this fragrant, steaming sea of goodness that was the perfect reviver from our partying the night before. The bowl of stew may contain pumpkin, potato, half a cob of corn, peppers or other juliened vegetables, with a bed of rice and chopped cilantro on top. Que rico.

A rich, rustic mash - Pastel de Choclo is the one and only Chilean recipe to be inculeded in the Larousse encyclopedia of food.

Pastel de Choclo: This is the iconic Chilean dish and a bastion of comfort food. It is served in homes and restaurants alike. The best way to describe it is a little like a cottage pie but with corn instead of potato. The clay pot bake starts with a mince meat base at the bottom that may or may not include a hard boiled egg, olives, chicken or even raisens. Then comes the mashed corn layer, sometimes with sugar sprinkled on top. I would suggest having this hearty bake for lunch because you may need to walk off the comatose aftereffects.

Torta Milohas - The torta milohas is the Chilean take on a millefeuille cake. You will find them in bakeries and on the desert menu. We opted for the freshly packed ones from the supermarket that are delicious, cheap and big enough for two.

SUPERMARKET SOUVENIERS

The supermarket in Chile is not unlike the one you shop at regularly back home. The only difference is that Chile does not have real milk. An outbreak of TB in cows has caused everyone to drink UHT shelf milk for now. However, like in France, there is an obsession for yogurt and yogurt drinks manifesting itself in an entire dedicated supermarket isle. There is also a love for everything strawberry - even a tinned variety.

Aji Chileno - This is the condiment Chileans hold close to their heart. It's a thicker and saltier version of hot sauce. Originally this came from Merken, a spicy red Mapuche paste. Chilis were hung, roasted and mixed with garlic and cilantro. Today the Aji coindiment contains a surprising amount of heat for an otherwise tame south american cuisine. - I realise this is ironic for the country's name. I personally liked mixing this with butter and dipping it into the broth dishes.

Cordial - As for soft drinks, I connot downplay the Chilean obsession for freshly squeezed fruit juice in cafes and restaurants. Everything from kiwi to strawberry juice is available everywhere. When Chileans cannot squeeze their own juice at home each day they use powdered drink cordials like this one from the Chirimoya fruit. In fact there is an entire isle of different flavors of powdered drink packets, a little like in cereal-obsessed America.

Wine - an obvious souvenier is a bottle of Carmaniere. See the previous blog on Chilean wines for affordable supermarket labels to take home.

Pisco - Capel is the major brand. A decent bottle will go for only 1,500 pesos. You may want to invest the few dollars in a bottle to make some of those pisco sours back home (see recipe on previous post).