La comida tipica Chilena - the food typical of Chile. We went to stay in Santa Cruz, in the Colchagua Valley wine region about 3 hours from Santiago. Finally what I had been waiting for, some real Chilean food. We had been searching high and low, and small a diner called ´El Rancho`delivered. Pictured here are ´humitas´in the foreground and ´pastel de choclo´in the background. ´Humitas´are cornmeal dough mixed with meat and spices then steamed or baked in corn husks (aka tamales). These little morsels were steamed and very tasty.
´Pastel de choclo´is a maize casserole, with beef or chicken inside. Generally there is the casserole underneath and the corn layer on top all nice and crunchy, however this version had been microwaved, so was a little soggy on top, but tasted pretty good. It had both chicken and beef, and hard boiled eggs, which also come in pastel de choclo but I wasn´t aware before hand. You should probably know, I have a weird thing about food with funny textures eg. eggs, sashimi, custard, anything too gelatinous or mushy. So I dodged the eggs, and the rest was quite yummy. with the chicken falling off the bone in a onion gravy. Aaron had another version in Santiago, which had the delicios crunchy top, but the corn part was really, really sweet which goes against my other food aversion - sweet food with salty food together.
So now you know a little more about Chilean food, and a little more about me. We have just arrived in Cusco, Peru, where local delicacies include Alpaca and ´cuy´which is guniea pig, so stay tuned for the good, the bad and the pushing of boundaries. xx
Yummo! I just saw some very similar little steamed meat maize parcels on Food lovers guide to Australia last night. Envious of your meals and travels x
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