Cooking and Eating Chilean Style

After my fab morning in the walking tour I set off in the afternoon to join the cooking class with a local company called Chilean Cuisine at  http://www.chileancuisine.cl/

There waiting to join in was a German couple who I had met in the morning; an Irish/Australian joined us as did a young German girl. Our host for the day Ines was a lovely lady who spoke both English and German.

Ines led us to the bus stop where we travelled to the local markets to buy our ingredients for the meal we were to be cooking. We had earlier made joint decisions as to what we should have for each course.

Pebre -a chilean salsa - chopped skinless tomatoes, fresh onion, cumin, salt and coriander marinated in lemon juice

Ceviche -raw fish salad, a bit different to the Peruvian version -fish lemon juice, red onion, lemon juice

Empanadas de Pino - South American pies - Pino’s with minced beef and onion cooked up with cumin, salt, paprika then thickened slightly. All wrapped inside pastry together with olives, raisins and a piece of boiled egg

Charquican - a stew of beef mince cooked up with a pile of various veg and then smashed

Alfajores - the South American cookies sandwiched together with dulce de leche -each country has its own version

Pisco Sour - the pisco (brandy) based cocktail that they drink with most everything when they are not drinking Carmenere (the wine that Chile is most known for).

The market was pretty quiet with it being later in the day but I could imagine how amazing it would be in the peak hours. As usual there were a few characters there to keep us amused. 

 We watched in awe as the fish monger cleaned and deboned 4 fish in about a minute and then for the 4 small hake charged $8. Wow!

Shopping complete we then boarded the bus to travel, close to my hotel, to our kitchen. A neat building, up some steps and down a lane, all covered in amazing art.

Our kitchen was a large room that looked out over the street all set up for us to begin prep. I was disappointed that we wouldn’t get to cook anything but Ines kept us informed of what she was doing and most importantly why she was doing things certain ways. The sort of stuff I wanted to know. We got to chop the veg for both Pebre, Charquican and to prepare the fish for the ceviche.

For the Pebre we skinned the tomatoes, chopped the tomatoes, onion and coriander finely, added lemon juice, salt and cumin and chilled it for a while.

The Chilean ceviche is a little different to the Peruvian version in that it only contains a few ingredients and instead of the fish being chopped here we literally scrapped the fish off the skin with a fork so it was almost mashed. Once the main ingredients were combined heaps of lemon juice was added and it was all squished together and squashed down. It looked somewhat puke like, but white.

We had watched Ines make the mince filling for the Empanadas; browning onions and mince together and cooking out, adding seasoning then to thicken (never seen it done like this) sprinkling with flour, then adding water and cooking until it thickened. The mix was then left to cool.

Time for the Empanada pastry, flour, egg yolks, slightly warmed wine with a bit of sugar and oil. Knead it all together then roll out thin to form a circle. Placing a large dollop of the cooled mince mix onto the pastry and adding the egg, olive and raisins we folded them over and made a half round pie. Ines then showed us the various wraps that they use in Chile to show what filling each has. Quite different to the shapes they do in Argentina.

For the Charquican Ines again browned mince with onions. We chopped piles of assorted veg which she added to the pot with seasoning, salt, cumin and paprika and let it cook down. Once all the veg were cooked she smashed it so it ended up resembling a lumpy bubble n squeak.

Interesting that they do not use any sort of pepper for seasoning, simply because they don’t grow it here. 

Alfajore pastry was fun. Egg yolks, flour and salt kneaded together, rolled out real thin, cut into small rounds, pricked with a fork and baked to create crispy, cracker like rounds.

And then we got to the Pisco Sour. Pisco (Chilean pale coloured brandy) lemon juice, egg white, sugar syrup, washed ice and all shaken together until the ice melted. Easy peasy.

And then we got to eat.  

Our table was already set and in the centre was our jug of Pisco Sour, a jug of water and a bowl of Merken. Merken is a spice commonly used in Chile and created by the indigenous Mapuche people. It is traditionally dried Goats Horn Chile (which is mildly spicy and smoky) but because that is not always readily available a mix of dried chiles, coriander seeds, oregano, smoked paprika and salt is used. Ours was the real thing and super delicious.  

Firstly, the Pebre, served with fresh bread. Grab a piece of bread, smother with Pebre, which had been macerating for an hour or so, and sprinkle on the Merken. We tasted the Pebre as soon as we made it and it was yum, but now, having macerated for a while was at a whole new level. The flavour combinations were divine and with the Merken little bursts kept popping in my mouth, citrus, sweet, smoky, sharpness from the onions and that ‘soapiness’ from the coriander. This would have done me. I could have kept going for ages, but we had to save some Pebre for other courses. Imagine having this with some No 1 sour dough. I’d happily die and go to heaven.

Next up our Ceviche: It didn’t look so appetising, like a pile of white stuff with none of the texture and shape that you would normally see in a raw fish dish, but oh boy, did it taste good. The fish was super fresh and despite the other ingredients it was the fresh fish that popped out just complemented by the seasonings. Delicioso!!

Empanadas came next: traditionally held in the hands to be eaten we did just that, just one cut so that we could easily access the filling and add some Pebre and Merken. The pastry was soft and silky but firm enough so that the whole thing didn’t fall apart in our hands and although delicious as they were the Pebre and Merken took the flavours to a new dimension. Topped off with a slug of Pisco Sour it was pretty amazing.

The main course of Charquican came next. My least enjoyable dish, but still it was great to the sample the Chilean staple. As I said it looked like bubble and squeak and tasted pretty much like it too. The Merken added the much needed flavour but still didn’t excite me. The Carmenere that we had with it though did. Fruity but smoky, spicy and earthy it was the perfect accompaniment to our meal.

And for desert our Alfajore crackers were sandwiched together with store bought dulce de leche and devoured in a second. The sweetness and smoothness of the caramel with the crunchiness of the crackers perfectly complementing each other.  

Perfect with the last of the Pisco Sour, sour but sweet with just a hint of brandy in the flavour but packing a punch given that it was mainly brandy. Maybe Pisco Sour will become a staple at home. Hot afternoons on the deck with a jug of Pisco Sour and some Ceviche sounds pretty magical..... Just like my day..

As the fog began to set it we made our way down the steps and along the lanes to home. An eery but great end to a super day.