10 Popular Chilean Dishes You Should Try
Chilean cuisine is extremely varied, from simple casseroles, warming soups, flavorful sausages to refreshing shellfish. National food will not leave any tourist indifferent.
Thanks to its varied natural and geographical conditions, Chile is one of the few places in the world known for its incredible variety of fruits, vegetables, seafood and meat. Seafood is sourced approximately 6,500 km from the Pacific coast.
Traditional Chilean cuisine is quite simple, and the ingredients of the dishes depend on the season of the year. In small restaurants like picada or local fast food eateries scattered around major Chilean cities, you can try national cuisine at reasonable prices. In Santiago, Chilean cuisine can be enjoyed in small areas near the central La Vega food market.
Pebre
Pebre is a staple seasoning used in Chilean cuisine. It is added to almost all dishes. To prepare, use diced tomatoes, onions, cilantro, aji pepper or red pepper paste. You can see it on the table of most local restaurants.
Seafood
Chile is famous for its huge variety of dishes made from well-known varieties of fish and shellfish, including soups and stews. To prepare them, they use clams, mussels, eels and other seafood caught near the shore.
The unusual centollu (a large sweet crab found in the south), locos (white clams) and richly seasoned puri are usually dressed with mayonnaise or fresh lemon juice. Local seafood is naturally the best along the coast.
Chiloe is famous for its clams and mussels, while centolla is best enjoyed in Punta Arenas. Whether you’re in a big city or a small city, the best place to sample Chilean seafood is the central market. The price of dishes varies from 3,000 to 7,000 Chilean pesos.
Empanada
Empanada is a filled pie. A traditional Chilean dish, empanadas are dipped into eggs before being put into the oven. The pies are filled with so-called pinot (a mixture of meat, onions, olives and boiled eggs), cheese or vegetables. After long nights of partying on the coast, empanadas with cheese and shellfish are especially popular.
This dish can be enjoyed almost anywhere: small restaurants, corner stores, grocery stores or places that specialize in making empanadas. The average price of an empanada de pinot is approximately 500-800 pesos. An empanada baked according to the best bakery recipes will cost 1,300 pesos.
The baked pie is served hot. It’s sweet, spicy and amazingly delicious.
However, you can try this delicacy only in the summer months, when the corn harvest (which the locals call choclo) ripens. You can try the dish in picada restaurants or canteens for 2,500 pesos.
Umita
Like Mexican tamales, they are corn pies wrapped in corn cob leaves and steamed or boiled. Like pastel de choclo, umita is a summer delicacy.
You can try this dish at the market, picadas or canteens. It costs about 500 pesos per piece. A full meal includes two umitas and an ensalada chilena (onions, tomatoes, cilantro) costing 1,500-3,000 pesos.
Curanto
This dish is popular on Chile’s largest island, Chiloe. It is traditionally prepared from baked potatoes, chicken, meat and sausages, in a large clay pit lined with hot stones and covered on top to retain heat.
Any chilote, a restaurant that tries to serve customers at the highest level, offers several types of this dish, costing 4,000 pesos per serving. The traditional method of cooking in the ground is an attribute of any festival, so visiting the island of Chiloe during the festival will be the best choice.
Caldo de pata
Caldo de pata is a warming soup made with thick broth, vegetables and pork feet. The dish is quite inexpensive, which is quite consistent with market prices – less than 1000 pesos. Try this soup while in Santiago, in a place called La Vega Chica.
However, sausages can also be added to it. It is prepared in the summer, like most dishes with corn. This dish costs less than 4,000 pesos.
Asado
This dish is a mixed roast that is prepared on the occasion of a celebration or some other celebration in Chile. It is prepared on a parrilla or grill: chicken, lamb, pork and longaniza (Chilean sausage) and Chilean chorizo are fried over smoking coals. In order to experience the real taste of this dish, you need to taste it in a Chilean’s home. The standard price for an as ado, a pieta, which is often served in a restaurant along with the aggreged or side dishes mentioned above, is around 1,500 pesos.
Sopaipilla
Fried pumpkin cakes are usually eaten with pare or mustard. Places where they are sold are easy to find on the street, and they cost about 100 pesos (about 7 rubles). These flatbreads are considered a good snack, but to experience their real taste, you should try homemade flatbreads.
Fast food
Canteens with fast food. Chilean fast food includes sandwiches with meats, such as churrasco’s (thinly sliced beef between thick slices of bread, topped with avocado puree or layers of mayonnaise), as well as Chileans’ favorite street food, complete.
This type of hot dog is topped with sauerkraut, pickled vegetables, tomatoes, avocado puree and mayonnaise. There are plenty of places where you can try street food, but there are especially many of them in the center of Santiago. Most menu items cost less than 2,500 pesos.
