Marph goes to Chile

Hi from a sunny Brazil! 

Wow, what an amazing holiday in Chile! What a great country, so progressive and super friendly people. My favourite South American country so far. 

I was having so much fun that I forgot to take selfies most of the time! 

Here are the two I did remember to take: 

The Plaza de Armas in Santiago

My favourite, Mote con Huesillo!

We really enjoyed trying all the different and delicious traditional Chilean food on offer. In no particular order, these are some of the ones we tried:

Choripan: High on the list of favourites, choripan is usually served as a starter during a braai and consists of a Longaniza sausage (similar to chorizo) on a roll (pan in Spanish). Incomplete without salsa de pebre: finely chopped tomatoes, avo, spring onion and coriander with some lime juice. We cheekily re-named choripan longipan. Joan’s brother Daniel also makes a variation with soft taco shells he calls choritaco. No future braais will be the same without choripan! 

Empanadas: a pastry with fillings of all kinds from the traditional pino (mince, onion and an olive) to cheese, shrimp, machas, crab meat and everything inbetween. Our all time favourite Chilean dish. Mayira still makes the best ones =)

Machas: a type of surf clam, commonly served with parmesan cheese or as an empanada filling.

Locos: Chilean abalone served on its own, as an empanada filling or in chupe. 

Jaibas: Chilean crab meat. So soft and delicious! One of our favourite empanada fillings and the best kind of chupe. 

Chupe: We loved chupe de jaibas but chupe comes in various forms. A thick and creamy casserole of delicious soft and tasty Chilean crab meat with parmesan on top. Truly delicious and another firm favourite. 

Cola de Mono or Monkey Tail: a cocktail made with milk, sugar, coffee, cloves and Pisco. Traditionally served at Christmas and New Year. A favourite of Bron's. 

Mote con Huesillo: a traditional drink made with rehydrated dried peaches and cooked wheat. Best served ice cold. Usually served on Chilean national holidays but can also be found on hot days in the city. 

Completos: the Chilean version of the hot dog. Hot dogs topped with chopped tomato, mayo and sauerkraut

Completos Italiano: more hot dog variations. Hot dogs served with chopped tomato, mayo and avo . So named since the colours resemble the Italian flag. 

Pastel de choclo: misleadingly, not a pastry with corn inside but more like shephard’s pie with a corn topping instead of mashed potatoes. Pretty good. 

Various kinds of typical Chilean fish

Pan amasado: a kind of home made bread.

Kuchen: German style tart baked with fresh fruit on top. Available in areas where German immigrants settled. We enjoyed a lot of kuchen in the Pucon area. 

Chilean Christmas cake: last on the list but definitely not least. Varies throughout Chile but all very different to the traditional English dense fruitcake. Jesús from the Santiago PRDW office makes the best one, well, his Mom does anyway. Difficult to describe but it's less dense and just the right amount of rich, so yummy! 

Needless to say we are now on a very much needed detox diet! 

See you next time for Part 2 of our Chilean Summer holiday!

x