Chilean Shepherd’s Pie

In other countries they also prepare Shepherd’s Pie, such as Peru and Argentina, with only a slight variation in some ingredients.

For 4 portions.

Ingredients

4 potatoes
1/2 cup of milk
2 tablespoons of butter
1 pound (1/2 kg aprox.) of ground meat
1/2 red pepper
1 large onion
2 hardboiled eggs
15 large black olives
20 yellow raisins
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 cup of grated mozarella cheese
1/4 cup of Chilean red wine
Condiments: salt, pepper, ground cumin, oregano, chili pepper, and paprika.

 
Preparation

Make the mashed potatoes.
Wash the potatoes and put them in a pot of cold water with a bit of salt, and let boil.
When they’re done, take them out and let them cool a bit.
Peel the potatoes, and mash them, adding milk, butter and salt. They should be thick.

Make the meat mixture.
Peel and chop up the onion into little squares.
Wash and cut the red pepper into small pieces.
Peel and chop up the garlic cloves.
Heat a pan, and add the olive oil.
Fry the onion with the red pepper.
After a bit, you add the garlic and ground meat.
Then you can add salt, pepper, ground cumins, oregano, chili pepper, paprika, depending on how much you want.
Mix it all well, so that meat is completely cooked.
After the meat is cooked, add red wine, mix it well and after one minute remove it from the stove.

Heat the oven to 400 F degrees.

Add a bit of butter to the bottom of the glass or ceramic container you are going to use to bake in.
In the bowl you use to cook the mixture, make sure you leave some space at the top.
Soak the raisins in warm water for 5 minutes.
Put a layer of mashed potatoes using about half of the potatoes you had prepared.
Add a layer of the prepared meat mixture.
Add black olives, the raisins, and the hardboiled eggs, cut into pieces.
Add a final layer of mashed potatoes.
Finally add the grated mozarella cheese over everything.

Bake approximately 30 minutes or until it looks golden on top.

In this preparation instead of grated cheese, you can do bread crumbs.
Instead of black olives, it is also tasty with green olives.
The secret is to add lots of ground cumin, it gives a good flavor to this and many other Chilean recipes.
You can prepare the mashed potatoes with the instant mix kind, but they will never be as good as your own homemade mashed potatoes.

Chicken with Peas (Pollo Arvejado)

Typical Chilean dish.

For 4 portions.
Chicken with peas
Ingredients

4 pieces of chicken
2 carrots
2 cup of peas
1 large tomato
1/2 onion
1/2 red pepper
2 garlic cloves
1 bay leaf
1 chicken flavored bouillon cube
1/2 teaspoon of flour
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 cup of white wine, I use Chardonnay (Chilean wine is always nice)
1/2 cup of water or vegetable stock
Condiments: salt, black pepper, paprika, cumin powder, chili powder (I use about 1/2 teaspoon of each)

The chicken is accompanied with white rice, and fried potato cubes.


Preparation

2 hours before the cooking, you have to dress the chicken with chopped garlic, salt, black pepper and leave it in the refrigerator.

Prepare the vegetables, cutting the onion into thin pieces, chopping up the carrots and red peppers, and cutting the red pepper into thin slices.

Heat a pot at medium heat, and add olive oil.

Place the chicken in the pot, and sautee it for 5 minutes, flipping occasionally.
Then add the onion, red pepper, carrots, bay leaf, bouillon cube, and the condiments.

After 10 minutes, add the white wine and stir around a little bit.
Add the water or vegetable stock, and the tomato and peas.

Lower the heat a bit, and cook for 35 minutes, stirring occasionally.

At the end, add the flour, stir well and cook for 2 more minutes.


Preparation of white rice

For one cup of rice.
Boil water,
Sautee rice in olive oil for one minute in a pan, then add 1/2 cup of white wine, and 1 1/2 cups of hot water, salt.


Preparation of small potato cubes

Cut the potatos into small cubes,
Fry the potato in oil. You add throw in some cloves of garlic with the potato cubes, and they give it a nice taste.

Serve the chicken with the potato cubes on top, and next to the white rice.

Click here for the recipe in Spanish.