More food

Lately, Carlos and I have been pursuing our Chilean adventure through the medium of traditional meals, warranting a second full post on Chilean cuisine. Enjoy.

Pastel de choclo 

Pastel de choclo

Pastel de choclo (literally translated as 'corn cake') is the meal every Chilean remembers their mom or their grandma making. It's a bit like a meat pie, only the topping is made from ground corn rather than potatoes or pastry. Underneath are strips of tender beef and chicken in gravy, along with a boiled egg and an olive. The dish has a strange sensation of being both sweet and savoury; the corn is quite sweet anyway, but I'm told it also has sugar sprinkled on top. How Chileans eat this dish in the midday sun I don't know, but they do.

Cazuela

Cazuela de pavo (turkey) with the 'everything' salad and
bread with pebre

In a word stew. I ordered this dish in Pomaire yesterday (more on this in the next post) and it came out served in a massive bowl, leg of turkey sticking out the top with a dollop of squash and potato and a garnish of green beans (porotos verdes - a very popular vegetable here). You can have it with chicken or beef too. Suffice to say, when eating this at four in the afternoon for lunch, I nearly exploded. Tasty though.

Humitas

Humitas (with an ensalada chilena in the background)

This was Carlos' Pomaire dish of choice. An humita consists of mashed corn wrapped in its leaves and tied into a parcel. We're not entirely sure what else goes into them - definitely onion and a herb, which Wikipedia tells me is basil, plus butter or lard. To me, they tasty quite meaty, so perhaps that was the lard. Impressively, two humitas foiled Carlos, possibly the first time of seen him unable to finish a meal.

Agregados
Or side dishes. So far we've had two traditional meals in traditional Chilean restaurants and the procedure seems to be as follows. Start with a bread roll topped with pebre - a hot salsa-type sauce made from tomatoes, onion, garlic, coriander and jalapeno peppers. I adore it (it's what I have on sopaipillas) and definitely need to have a go at making it myself. Then your main dish comes (which usually consists of meat and corn at the very least) accompanied by a salad - either a simple ensalda chilena of tomato and onion or an 'everything' salad, usually consisting of tomato and beetroot as a base, as well as cauliflower, carrot, cucumber or whatever else is to hand.

Mote con huesillos

Mote con huesillos

Either a dessert or drink made from a sweet sticky peach syrup served with a whole peach inside it (the huesillos) and husks of wheat (the mote). Clearly not looking like we'd been fed enough, we were given some for pudding by the restaurant in Pomaire where we'd had the humitas and cazuela. We then had to knock it back before getting on the return bus to Santiago. Needless to say, I cant give you a proper review, except to say that it was very sweet, a little strange (odd sensation of syrup and cereal) but enjoyable. We'll be valiant and give them another try before we leave.

Empanadas

Empanadas (the things that look like
brownish-yellow parcels)

Empanadas are to Chile what fish and chips are to the UK. The national dish, in essence, is a Cornish pasty - pastry stuffed with a range of hot ingredients. The most common is pino; you guessed it, beef, gravy, a boiled egg and an olive. There's also a really nice one filled with cheese and (surprise, surprise) corn and one filled with cheese and olives. I've also heard of some great seafood varieties but have yet to try one. Empanadas are so common that I've realised I've neglected to take a photograph out of the numerous quantities I've sampled. Nevertheless, they popped up on this monument to Chile built for Columbus Day at Estadio Español in October.