The empanada: Chile on a plate
No dish is more Chilean than the empanada de pino — a baked pastry filled with seasoned beef, onion, a slice of hard-boiled egg, an olive and a raisin. Golden and hearty, it appears at every celebration, and for many Chilean-Australians the smell of empanadas baking is Fiestas Patrias. Coastal versions swap the beef for cheese or seafood (empanadas de mariscos), a nod to Chile's love of the sea.
Comfort classics
Chilean home cooking is warm and unfussy. Pastel de choclo layers a sweet, silky corn topping over spiced meat, chicken, egg and olive. Cazuela is a nourishing one-pot stew of meat, corn, pumpkin and potato — Sunday lunch in a bowl. And the completo, Chile's exuberant take on the hot dog piled with avocado, tomato and mayonnaise, is the country's favourite street food. For authentic step-by-step recipes, Recetas de Chile is a wonderful resource.
Pebre, bread and the shared table
Set on nearly every Chilean table is pebre — a fresh salsa of coriander, onion, chilli and lime that brightens everything it touches — alongside warm bread such as marraqueta or hallulla. Meals are long and social; the culture of the shared table, and of once (afternoon tea), is as important as any single dish, as we explore in our guide to Chilean culture.
From the sea and the vine
Chile's cold Pacific current yields some of the world's finest seafood — mussels, razor clams, sea bass and more — celebrated in dishes like curanto from the island of Chiloe. Inland, the Central Valley produces the wines that made Chile famous, above all the deep, plummy Carmenere, a grape the country has adopted as its signature. Explore Chile's food and wine regions to plan a tasting journey.
Sweet endings
Save room for something sweet: mote con huesillo, a refreshing summer drink of husked wheat and dried peaches; alfajores filled with manjar (dulce de leche); and sopaipillas, golden pumpkin fritters eaten on rainy days. These are the flavours that turn a house in the suburbs of Sydney into a corner of Chile — and that everyone is welcome to share. See where they appear on our community events page.
The Chilean table through the year
Chilean food follows the seasons and the calendar. Winter calls for cazuela and warming sopaipillas eaten hot against the rain. Summer brings mote con huesillo from street carts and long lunches of fresh seafood by the coast. And no September would be complete without empanadas by the tray and an asado sending its smoke over the back fence. Each dish is tied to a moment, and cooking it at the right time of year is itself a way of keeping time with home.
For the diaspora, recreating these dishes in Australian kitchens is an act of memory and love — a way of setting a Chilean table on the far side of the world, and of teaching children that heritage is something you can taste. Pair it all with a glass of Chilean red, and the distance between Santiago and Sydney all but disappears.