The Southern Cone · Volume 26, Coast, Valley and the Mapuche and German South
Charquicán
Southern Chile, Mapuche origin
Illustration
- Time
- 1 hour
- Researched
- Researched from 30 sources in the brief
This dish is the crossover the research specifically went looking for, and found: charquicán is southern and Mapuche in origin, not central, whatever its current reach across the whole country implies. The original form used charqui, dried meat, historically guanaco, predating cattle ranching in Chile entirely, with potato and squash among southern indigenous groups, the Spanish later adding cumin and salt.
As tradition built it
Serves 10. About 1 hour.
Ingredients
- 1kg beef chuck in 1cm cubes, or minced beef
- 2½ tbsp oil
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 6 potatoes, in 1.5cm cubes
- 400g winter squash (zapallo), in 1.5cm cubes
- 1½ tsp ají de color
- ½ tsp ground cumin
- 2½ tsp whole oregano
- 600ml hot water
- 1 packet beef stock powder
- 480ml sweetcorn kernels
- 480ml green beans, cut lengthways
Method
- Heat the oil in a large pot over a medium heat and cook the meat 5 minutes. Add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion is soft.
- Add the potatoes and squash and stir. Mix in the ají de color, cumin and oregano.
- Add the hot water and the stock powder. Bring it to the boil, lower the heat, and simmer 25 minutes, until the vegetables are soft.
- Add the sweetcorn and green beans and cook 5 minutes, until tender.
- Mash the potato and squash gently with a wooden spoon, and serve hot.
Notes
The recipe is Gourmet's, the Chilean spice company. Pilar Hernández, of La Cocina Chilena, gives the charqui version: bake the charqui 15 minutes at 180°C, rinse it first if it is very salty, shred it fine when cool, and add it at the meat stage without browning. She serves a fried egg on each bowl.
What a modern chef changes
Real dehydrated charqui, and a soft sous vide egg
Method
- Make real charqui at home rather than substituting minced beef throughout: salt thin-sliced beef and dry it in a dehydrator at a low, controlled temperature until properly leathery, then shred it back in for the dish's actual traditional texture.
- Finish with a soft, sous vide egg rather than a fried one, the yolk still fully liquid, cutting through the mash rather than sitting dry on top of it.
- Give the finished squash a brief pass of Big Green Egg smoke before it goes into the mash, nodding at merkén's own smoked character without asking the dish to carry a separate condiment on top.