The Southern Cone · Volume 27, Cassava, Maté and the Chaco's Second Kitchen
Chipa guasu
Eastern Paraguay
Illustration
- Time
- 1 hour
- Researched
- 49 sources cited
No gram quantities were found in any source consulted; the process below is documented, the exact ratios are not.
As tradition built it
Baked 45 minutes to an hour at 180°C.
Ingredients
- 500g fresh corn kernels
- 200ml milk
- 2 egg yolks
- 250g queso Paraguay
- 1 tsp fine salt
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 100ml oil
- 1 medium onion, finely diced
- 2 egg whites
Method
- Blend the corn with the milk. Turn it into a bowl and add the yolks, cheese, salt and sugar.
- Mix in the oil and the raw onion.
- Beat it hard with a rubber spatula, and check the salt.
- Whisk the whites to stiff peaks and fold them in gently.
- Pour it into a baking dish and bake at 180°C for 45 minutes to an hour.
Notes
Where fresh corn is unavailable, sources treat rinsed canned corn as a workable but genuine compromise, not an equivalent.
The recipe is María Löffler's, in ABC Color. Chef Aquilina Aguilera, Ña mami, also in ABC Color, blends or grinds a kilo of corn with oil, whole eggs, milk, onion, half a kilo of cheese and salt, and bakes it about 40 to 45 minutes. Neither grates the corn by hand.
What a modern chef changes
A crisped exterior against a soft interior, after the Asunción kitchen that pioneered exactly this move
Rung 6
Method
- Bake the batter in a shallow, wide dish rather than a deep one, maximising surface area so more of it develops the crisp, golden top that a deeper dish only achieves at the very edges.
- Finish under a hot grill or with a blowtorch for a final minute once the interior has set, building real crisp contrast against the soft, custardy body underneath, in the spirit of Óga's own crisped version.
- Pair with a confit fruit, following the same restaurant's own instinct: something sharp and slightly sweet, gooseberries or a tart plum work in a British kitchen where cherries are out of season, cutting through the dish's richness the way Óga's confit cherries do.
Notes
The Asunción restaurant Óga, run by chef Romina Roura, serves a version explicitly crisped and paired with confit cherries, the clearest documented example of a named kitchen reworking chipa guasu's texture rather than simply plating it as a traditional side.