Chile

Menu: chorrillana, pebre, and mote con huesillos | Recipe Sources: Gringalicious, Chili Pepper Madness, chileanfoodrecipes.com

Apart from having tried Chilean seabass (literal food of the gods) on a handful of occasions, I’d never gotten my hands on any Chilean food until today. One of the best parts of this cooking experience BY FAR was being able to order ingredients for mote con huesillos from an online Chilean supermarket called ChinChile. They sold all three of the tricky-to-find essentials (whole dried peaches, Chilean wheatberries, and chancaca) in a perfect little “make your own mote” kit, and being able to order those items in a bundle made everything so much easier.

And on that note, a little ingredient explainer before we dive in! This was my first time working with these two items, and I really enjoyed them both.

• Chancaca: known as panela in Latin America and piloncillo in Mexico, chancaca is a (very very) solid brick of unrefined cane sugar that’s made by boiling and evaporating sugarcane juice until it condenses. The brick itself is extremely dense and heavy, and you have to use a very sharp knife to shear it off in crumbles. It tastes like a more complex version of brown sugar: malty, molasses-y, almost faintly maple-y, and overall delicious.
• Wheatberries: These oat-looking granules are wheat in one of its most unrefined forms. Each “berry” is a whole wheat kernel that’s only missing the husk, and once cooked, the taste and texture are very oat-ish.

Pebre: a zingy, rough-chopped condiment made of tomato, onion, cilantro, serrano peppers, and white vinegar

Mote con huesillos: a sweet, chilled juice made of dried peaches and chancaca boiled in water with orange peels and cinnamon, served with wheatberries

Chorrillana: steak marinated in a savory sauce, served over a bed of crispy fries and topped with fried eggs

Thoughts: Chile will go down as one of my absolute favorite countries from Cooking Around the World. The marinated chorrillana steak was salty and savory and delicious; the fries were the perfect vessel for sopping up extra sauce and egg yolk; the pebre (Chile’s rebuttal to pico de gallo) was sharp and fresh; and the mote con huesillos was there to provide a much needed blast of sugar between bites. I was really skeptical about the wheatberries at the bottom of the juice, but it turns out they’re mostly there for texture- super similar to boba tea (one of the eternal loves of my life).

This meal is, in all honesty, the dream hangover meal.

Ready to Cook?

Chorrillana: The longer you marinate the steak, the better it tastes! I bought pre-sliced ribeye, which made the whole process much simpler. I also doubled the amount of marinade and reserved half of it to use while cooking the onions. Link: https://steemit.com/food/@gringalicious/traditional-chilean-chorrillana-beef-and-egg-loaded-french-fries-my-secret-french-fry-technique-included-food-photo-shoot-and

Pebre: It truly is a nearly-exact replica of pico de gallo, just with a little more oomph. If I had to put them head to head, pebre would win every time. Same thing as the steak for chorrillana- the earlier you make the pebre, the longer it has to marinate, and the more robust it tastes. Link: https://www.chilipeppermadness.com/chili-pepper-recipes/dips/pebre/

Mote con huesillos: It was flawless and unlike any juice I’ve ever tasted before. Definitely order chancaca and don’t just use regular sugar or brown sugar- you could totally taste that rich, malty flavor in the final product, and the drink would taste a little less “interesting” without it! Link: https://www.chileanfoodrecipes.com/mote-con-huesillos-dessert-recipe/