Cooking class in Valpo!

Monday March 24 was another socked in foggy day.  It was cool (around 17C), but OK for walking.  There was a 6.2 earthquake in northern Chile at around 8:00 a.m.  One of the guests noticed it and Alano thought he felt something.  I always seem to miss the action.

We had signed up for a cooking class with Chilean Cuisine, recommended in our guidebook.  We were to meet our chef, Boris, at 4:00 p.m. at a cafe near Plaza Sotomayer downtown.

We walked downtown at about 1:00 p.m. and went to the area near Plaza Anibal Pinto, where we had met our Free Tour last week.  We took a few photos of the 'hood, hung out and watched the micro buses (tons of these private busses in the city), and the 60 plus year old trolleys.

The tin covered houses are quite common in Valpo-they apparently have a bit of give when there are earthquakes.

Tin covered homes

Looking up the ascensor Reina Victoria 1902

We passed a beer store with a plaque honouring the Irishman who established a brewery on the site.  It says that Valparaiso was the birthplace of beer in Chile.

Nearby was a flower market and accompanying street art.

Flower market

We watched the micro buses for a while.  Each bus has a big sign in the window indicating the route and destination.  They are fast, efficient and inexpensive (about 75- 80 cents CAN) and travel throughout the hills and El Plan (the flat part of the city).

The old trolleys, some of which date back to the late 40s and early 1950s only travel on one route in the flat part of the city.  Alano really likes busses and trolleys, so he's enjoying the transit scene.

                                                                   Antique trolley

We then went to Empanadas Famosas, a 52 year old empanada joint, where the locals hang out.  We had baked empanadas de pino (beef with onions, an olive, and a hard-boiled egg), our favourite and the Chilean specialty.

Empanadas Famosas

Inside signage

                                                                        Enjoying an empanada de pino 

We stopped for a coffee at the Cafe del Poeta, and took a photo of the two great Chilean poets (mannequins, anyway) inside.

We then headed to our rendezvous with our chef.  There was a new boat in the harbour- Sunny Bay.

                                                  Lots of big boats come and go in the port

We met Boris, our chef, and Claire and Phil, a young couple from London, England who were also taking the cooking class.  We got on a bus and went to Mercado Cardonal, a very big fruit and vegetable enclosed market.  There used to be another market more centrally located, but it was severely damaged during an earthquake.  A number of the stalls had closed for the day, but there were a number still open and Boris took us to his favourites as we shopped for our dinner.

Fruits and veg galore

Boris buying eggs from guy who sells eggs and dog food!

Corn and lettuce

                          Lots of bean and squash

     

The market building

Limon de Pica Fresco (small lemons for our Pisco Sours)

Tunas Dulces (like a prickly pear plant) for dessert

 Fish store outside the market building- mussels are big in Chile

We walked by a truck full of onions near the enclosed market.

The largest celery we have ever seen

Corn right from the farm

We then took another bus to the cooking school which is located in an airy apartment not too far from our B&B.  We first had a wine tasting with one white and three reds from the nearby Casablanca Valley.  It turned out that the school's wine supplier was the store we have been buying our wine from, located near the Naval Museum.

                                    Painted wall and dining table with aprons and chef's hats set out

                                          Three of the wines we tasted; a merlot, a carmenere and a cabernet sauvignon

Boris, our chef, with the wine

                                                                     Getting ready to chop!

At work!

Gorgeous basil, cilantro and tomatoes

                                                       Phil, Alano, me and Claire-The Team

There was a neighbourhood cat who watched us from outside the window.  Boris called him "nightmare".  He went nuts when we were making the ceviche.  He had a lovely black tail to go with his white body.

                                                  Cat watching everything from outside the window

Our meal consisted of ceviche, empanadas pino and queso (made with goat cheese), salsa (known as pebre), small portions of pastel de choclo (the corn with chicken, beef, olives and egg dish we like) and fruit for dessert.  We had pisco sours just before dinner and wine with dinner.  Boris worked around my lactose intolerance.

                             

With the corn for the pastel de choclo

 Shaking up the pisco sours

                                                                        With the ceviche ingredients

                                                  Phil and Claire with pisco sours in front of empanada dough

Pisco sours too!

Empanadas ready for oven

We finally sat down for dinner and ate all the food we had prepared.  The ceviche was totally awesome as was everything else.

                                                                               Ceviche

Cooked empanadas next to pebre  (salsa)

Pebre is a spicy salsa mixture made with tomatoes and onions and a spice blend called "Merquen", which is a spicy pepper of Mapuche origin made with dried smoked chili peppers.  At the end of our class, Boris gave us a small amount of the ground spice blend as well as a whole pepper which has a wonderful smokey flavour.

The class ended at about 9:30 p.m.  We shared a taxi with Phil and Claire who dropped us just a block from our B&B.  It was a wonderful experience and Boris, a former dancer, was a great teacher.  We even learned a family secret- to put white wine in the empanada dough.

For more info check out www.cookingclasseschile.cl    Boris sent us all the recipes we had made  and many more by email today.  If anyone reading the post is interested in the recipes, let me know.