Chile…….a culinary tale.

When we weren’t hiking the trails, mountains and in the villages with Foothills Hiking Chile, we were walking in San Fernando, in Santa Cruz, in Chimbarongo and in Santiago.  In San Fernando, we happened upon a lovely restaurant and had dinner there.  Most of the restaurants around our hotel in San Fernando were of the  fast food variety, so we were ready for a nice dinner  and my husband, somehow learning from the waiter that this dish contained meat, promptly ordered it.

Chorrillana is a Chilean dish that is made with french fries topped with different kinds of meat, sausages, caramelized onions and right at the top…..two fried or scrambled eggs.

A lovely salad.

 

Pepino Dulce

We purchased this at the  supermercado (supermarket) across from Hotel Espanol.  It is a fruit that tastes like a cucumber.

 

Begging  for this cup at the cafe that we visited did not sway the server….. “No, no, no, I cannot sell it.”

This was our own delicious feast that we bought at the market……it went over very well for our Happy Hour.

 

San Fernando Market

 

I bought these at the market and was told to boil them for an hour and sprinkle with cinnamon…. I believe they were some variety of apricot.

 

I love this picture. I asked if I could take her picture and she was so pleased.

 

 

The ‘mason jar’ bag ( a gift from my daughter) came in handy when I bought olives at the market.

 

Wine Festival in Santa Cruz

 

Using a hairdryer to rekindle the barbecue coals.

 

Cooking Class….Cazuela de Ave

Cazuela de Ave is the national dish of Chile.  Chicken, vegetables, salt and pepper, cloves, coriander, paprika is used in this recipe, where we would probably use turnip, butternut squash or pumpkin is used. I don’t know if turnip is grown in Chile, but there was none to be found in the supermarkets or local market.

 

……a new drink.

In the little mountain village of Termas del Falco, the electricity is only on between 8 pm and midnight. This little bar had a interesting refreshment…a stout beer mixed with a can of condensed milk. Ordinarily a blender would be used, but because there was no power at this time of day, it was simply whisked with a fork.

 

While we were seeing the historic San Cristobal Hill in Santiago, we saw people drinking this interesting concoction …roughly translated it is peaches with wheat.  The ingredients are dried peach halves, sugar, cinnamon stick, lemon or orange peel, water and one cup cooked pearl barley or wheat berries.  It is very, very popular in Chile and while I enjoyed it, I don’t think it would be a favourite of mine.

 

A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch.

Chile you were an amazing experience.