Lighting a Grill Volcano Style, Carne Huachalomo, Pebre and Sandia Sour

Freddy

I was visiting my best friend Dave in Santiago, Chili and had the honor of being invited to a traditional Chilean cookout.  Freddy, my buddy’s neighbor, became excited when he heard that a BBQ enthusiast from America was coming to visit and eagerly insisted on hosting a traditional Chilean “BBQ.”  Despite my 30+ years as an avid grills-man, this event proved to be a delicious learning experience.

Chile has a Latin agriculture culture with a European influence.  Fruit trees are everywhere and a fresh fruit is a staple in Chilean cuisine.  As a result hardwood for cooking is abundant.  Nonetheless grilling with “Carbon” (lump charcoal) is preferred over “Leña” (hardwood).  Carbon is available everywhere from supermarkets to roadside vendors.  Slow burning charcoal briquettes are unheard of.

Although I often chide Dave for grilling with gas, I am secretly a little envious on how easily he can get his grill hot and ready, particularly when entertaining.   For this get-together Dave and his wife Megan, are using his gas grill to cook up a slew of vegetables freshly harvested from their large back yard. 

Meg's Caramel Onions - Click for Recipe

   

To pre-season his cooking surface Dave cooks up a few slices of Tocino (bacon) before adding a chopped onion.  Once cooked, he puts the bacon and onion aside while he puts the zucchini and tomatoes on.   Once they are cooked, he uses the bacon and onion as a topping for the roasted tomatoes.  Meanwhile Megan brings out her signature caramelized onions to keep warm on the grill.

Meanwhile next-door, Freddy is preparing to light his grill.   He uses a typical half-barrel type grill that has a large cooking area, but no cover.  He has the grate off, an empty wine bottle standing in the middle of the grill, and a small stack of newspaper pages ripped in half. 

One-by-one Freddy folds and twists each page length-wise into a ¾” ribbon and ties it around the bottle.  He places the bottle with five of these tied paper ribbons into the middle of the grill and proceeds to pour a pile of Carbon over it, forming a conical pile with the top of the bottle peeping out in the middle. 

Then he very carefully pulls the bottle straight up and out of the pile, leaving a perfect newspaper-lined cylinder in the middle of the pile.  He twists up the last sheet of newspaper into a long wand and lights it with a match before dropping it in the hole. 

Freddy explains that is lighting a fire this way is the 'Volcano' method.  Once the paper has burned off and some of the coals have a healthy glow, he starts fanning the fire with a piece of cardboard.  While not necessary he says, it does help the fire to be ready sooner.

While the coals are lighting, Freddy’s wife  Marella brings out a pitcher of Sandia Sour,  a refreshing drink made from watermelon, orange, ice, and Pisco (a Chilean brandy)

With the coals fully ignited and spread evenly, Freddy places the grate onto the grill and goes inside his house.  He comes out a minute later holding a baggie of frozen onion chunks and tosses them out onto the hot grate.  Using tongs, he cleans the grate by rubbing the frozen onion all over it.  As he scrubs the hot grate with the frozen onion Freddy explains that this not only cleans, but sort of ‘pre-seasons’ the grate with a little onion flavor.`

     First onto the grill are “Longaniza” a sort of chorizo style Chilean sausage followed by chicken pieces par-boiled in broth. He also has carne huachalomo  a whole beef tenderloin that he will put on after the chicken cooks a little longer.  Once they are cooked, Freddy starts serving the Longaniza As an appetizer on bread rolls, topping them Pebre, a Chilean salsa/relish. Meanwhile he is continuously turning the chicken pieces.

Most people know Pebre by its Mexican name Pico de Gallo, but that term is very offensive in the Chilean dialect of Spanish and not used, even in jest.

While we are enjoying the sausages, Freddy puts the carne huachalomo on the grill and starts to sear it on all sides.  As he sears it, he generously salts it and the chicken using very coarse salt.  He explains that his keeps the meat juicy while cooking.   Once all sides are seared, he splits the roast lengthwise down the middle with a sharp knife and then places the cut sides on the grate.   As those sides sear, Freddy further cuts the split roast into individual steaks continuing to cook them until they are done and ready to serve.

What I found interesting is that Freddy was able to cook larger, thicker meats that normally need to be cooked with covered, indirect heat by only using an open, direct heat source.  By continuously turning and cutting the meat to size during cooking he put a wonderfully delicious dinner on the table right alongside all the exquisite vegetables that Dave cooked on his gas grill ;-).

Two days earlier I had the pleasure of cooking KA-Ranch style for Dave and Freddy’s family.  See that blog here. 

Grilling in Santiago, Chile with Merkén & Los Gringos Amables

Recently I had the pleasure of visiting a longtime friend of mine.   He went on business to Santiago, Chile several years ago and liked it so much that he packed up his family and belongings in Dallas to become  Los Gringos Amables  (Friendly Americans) living just outside of Santiago .  The past several months he was strongly encouraging me to come for a visit as he wanted to show me the home they just bought and was renovating. 

I arrived during the harvest season.  Their house is surrounded with various fruit trees and his grilling area is shaded by a huge avocado tree while his outside dining area is shaded by an arbor of grape-laden vines.  Behind the house they have about an acre of land that they plowed and planted onions, tomatoes, and zucchini.  Turns out that they made a small error when they planted at the beginning of the season...because the planted all the seeds at once, the whole harvest ripened at the same time!  So during my visit, his wife Meg brought in a peck of tomatoes and cooked up a couple gallons of tomato sauce. 

Agriculture is a major part of the Chilean economy so it is no surprise that fruits and vegetables are prominent in their diet.   I found it interesting that although it is a Latin country with a rich farming community, Chilean cuisine is not very ambitious.  They shy away from cooking for complex flavor and spicy food is very rare.  The spice most commonly used is Merkén which is  similar to chipotle, but only half as hot as the jalapeño.

The first stop on our tour of Santiago was La Vega Central, one of several fresh produce markets in Santiago.  I wanted to find some Merkén while Dave was looking for fresh spinach to put on the grill that evening.  We easily found both while Megan found a watermelon with which to make Sandia Sour for our upcoming Chilean BBQ.

La Vega Central has been part of Santiago for over 100 years. It is primarily a wholesale market where the Chilean farms sell fresh fruits and vegetables to smaller vendors (who often truck the produce right back out of Santiago to another city) . Before dawn, the trucks arrive with their precious produce to be auctioned (at around 4 AM). Later, as the stocks decrease, some producers start selling in smaller quantities to casual consumers.

 We arrived back home in the early afternoon, giving us plenty of time to start cooking preparations.  My contribution was to be Habanero-Peach, Bourbon & Maple Pork Chops.  Despite being the best of friends, Dave and I are the classic opposites when it comes to grilling fuel philosophy.  I have always chided Dave about using gas and he never misses an opportunity to remind me how clean his hands are while I clean ash out of my charcoal set up.  Today, while I was secretly admiring the many cooking surfaces on his high-end Weber, he drags out an inexpensive charcoal grill he bought at a local discount market for me to use.  As I prepared the charcoal grill for the chops, Dave started working on the veggies.

Dave likes to ‘season’ the griddle insert of his grill before most every use by first cooking up some bacon and sliced onions.  Once those are cooked, he puts them aside and throws on about 2lbs of fresh spinach leaves that he has pulled the stems off of.  He drizzles the leaves with olive oil and lightly seasons them with KA-Ranch Cajun Cowboy Seasoning.  Turning often with a spatula, he gently cooks them until tender. 

In the meanwhile he slices the home grown tomatoes into halves. He brushes them with olive oil and seasons them with KA-Ranch Original Lockhart BBQ Rub before placing them on hot grate area of the grill.

By now the spinach is tender; he puts it into a bowl and sets it in a corner of the grill to keep warm while he starts on the zucchini he sliced up earlier.  He pours some olive oil on the griddle and arranges the slices on it before brushing them with more oil and seasoning with KA-Ranch Trail Dust Seasoning. 

As the feast was about to come to fruition, the table was set and his neighbor, Freddie, arrived with his family.  His wife, Marella, had made a fresh tomato and onion salad to go along with the meal.  We all had a wonderful evening and cleanup was easy as there were no leftovers!