3-Day Chile
Itinerary

Empanadas de Pino

Chile's most celebrated baked good — a hand-sized pastry pocket packed with pino filling: ground beef, onion, hard-boiled egg, black olive and raisin seasoned with cumin and paprika; baked until the crust turns a deep golden; the raisin's sweetness against the savoury beef is the essential Chilean flavour.

Pastel de Choclo

Chile's great summer casserole — a clay pot layered with pino (spiced beef, chicken, egg and olive) and topped with a thick, golden crust of ground fresh corn sweetened with basil and a dusting of sugar; baked until the corn top browns; the sweet corn crown over the savoury filling is quintessentially Chilean.

Curanto

The world's oldest surviving pit-oven feast — shellfish (clams, mussels, barnacles), smoked pork, potato dumplings (milcao) and vegetables layered over white-hot stones in a ground pit, covered with giant nalca leaves and sealed with wet sacking; steamed underground for an hour; a ritual of the Chiloé archipelago for thousands of years.