Pastel de choclo

Making something for the first time again and this time it is from the South American continent.

One evening a chilean colleague came to work with Pastel de Choclo, a dish I have never tried before. I on the other hand had a lame store bought salad, but we shared late night meal and this became my first taste of this dish Pastel de Choclo.

I googled Pastel de Choclo and on Wikipedia it said that it was first recorded in Peru, but it became popular in most of the South American countries. It is the South American version of a Shepard’s pie. The Chileans I know tell me that you also can serve this dish topped with mashed potatos instead of corn.

Even though the flavour of this dish has nothing common with my Filipino ancestry I see some similarities that our common spanish heritage has given our cuisine, olives and raisins. There are a few dishes in the Philippines wich contains raisins and olives.

This recipe is based on Nigella Lawsons and what I think I tasted during our late night meal. HERE is her recipe

I brought one dish to work to be tested. Comments  I got -something strange with the meat and the onions not finely chopped. Oh well, next time I’ll finely chop the onions and maybe use ground beef instead of thin slices of rib eye.

500 grams fresh sweetcorn kernels

1 handful fresh basil or Coriander(Cilantro) and parsley

1 teaspoon salt

500 grams chopped meat of your choice, I used thin slices of rib eye

1 tablespoon cooking oil

2 medium white onions

1 tablespoon ground cumin seeds

1 tablespoon paprika 

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 cooked chicken breast

2 large hard-boiled eggs

2 tablespoons raisins

1 handful black olives

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

Chop the corn with the herbs and salt to a coarse paste

In a pan with vegetable oil, sauté small onion cubes, chopped meat), cumin seeds, salt and ground paprika and ground chilli.  Once the meat is cooked and the onion has become translucent, put this in individual heat proof dish with olives and chopped raisins. Traditionally they use terracotta dishes, But I do not have any so I used something else.

Then slice up a couple of boiled eggs and lay the slices upon the first layer with. Pour the sweetcorn paste as a third layer, and off to the oven for 15 min at 250 C

Now the final step: the gratin, which is just some white sugar on top and back to the oven to get grilled.

It is recommended that you eat this with tomato salad with raw onion and a sprinkling of chopped basil leaves or coriander.