This comfort-food dish is one of Chile’s favourites

The dish

Pastel de choclo, Chile

Plate up

What do you get when you cross cottage pie with empanadas, and multiply that by tamales with a touch of moussaka? You get pastel de choclo, one of Chile’s favourite dishes, and one that has probably never been described that way before and may never again – but still, work with us. Because here’s what pastel de choclo is: you begin with a base of beef mince, which is cooked with onions, spices such as paprika, and stock to form a rough ragu, which is then mixed with boiled eggs, olives and raisins. Sound familiar? You will find something very similar stuffed into Chilean empanadas. Here though, the mixture is ladled into a casserole dish and topped with pre-cooked cornmeal made from choclo, a type of large-kernelled corn native to Chile and Peru. The whole lot is then baked until golden, and served either in the dish or scooped onto plates. So it’s a little like all the dishes we have mentioned above, and yet very much its own thing, so reminiscent of Latin America.

First serve

There’s a small problem here, because many countries in Latin America – Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina – consider this a staple. In Chile, however, pastel de choclo is a national dish, and it very likely originated in that country. Historians believe pastel de choclo was created by Mapuche cooks, who were forced to staff kitchens in early colonial times. These cooks took traditional ingredients such as choclo and adapted them to Spanish tastes, combining them with picadillo, a classic Spanish minced beef dish. Pastel de choclo grew in popularity during the 20th century when rural workers migrated to cities such as Santiago.

Order there

Though pastel de choclo is a revered comfort food to eat at home, in Santiago you can try a restaurant version at Restaurante Galindo (instagram.com/restaurante_galindo).

Order here

For excellent Chilean food in Sydney, head to Pochito in Mascot (instagram.com/pochitosydney). In Melbourne, call into Neruda’s in Brunswick (instagram.com/nerudasbrunswick). In Brisbane, try Buenisimo (buenisimo.com.au).

One more thing

The word choclo is Quechuan, though it’s derived from the Incan language. To the Incas, the starchy, big-kernelled corn cobs common in the west of Latin America were known as “chuqllu”.