MARKETS: Santiago's Mercado Central

Chile's capital city is a bustling metropolis, a modern Southern hemisphere hub featuring the juxtaposition of an ancient, dramatic mountainscape alongside glass-and-steel skyscrapers. The modern and efficient city planning leaves room for lots of wonderful green space as well. This is fitting for the city that represents this South American nation on the Pacific coast -- one that boasts a bounty of agricultural wonders and an amazing assortment of seafood to fill a grand market space like the Mercado Central in Santiago. The market's neoclassical structure was inaugurated in 1872, and is today a protected Historical Monument of the city.

This vast covered market offers food sellers of all stripes, but is overwhelmingly known as the fish market for its exhaustive selection of Pacific "fruits of the sea". There are all kinds of fish in the categories of white flaky fish, there are darker-fleshed oily fish high in Omega 3s. And you can find every kind of shellfish and cephalopod imaginable in this market. Just be careful to keep an eye on where you're walking, as the market floor tends to get a bit hazardous from the constant hosing-down of the seafood stalls. (It would be no fun landing in a puddle of seafood-scented saline sludge!)

One item that I'd never seen in any market before, in all of my travels, was the Pacific giant squid. In the photo here, those crab claws are not baby-sized. They're normal-to-large as far as crab claws go (another local treat). Those rectangular-shaped pieces of what are calamari steaks are essentially sliced rings of the giant squid. They're enormous! The squid are monstrous in size and can grow to be as large as 45 feet long and weigh as much as 600 pounds! These squid sold here may not technically be THE giant squid, but they're really large and are at the very least related to them. And despite what you might think about these large creatures -- my initial thought was that they may be incredibly tough or rubbery when cooked -- they're actually delicious and tender.

No market would be complete without meat for the landlubbers among us. Chile is more of a seafood nation compared to its beef-consuming neighbor, Argentina. But there are still plenty of carnivorous Chileans keeping the meat markets frenetic and literally filled to the rim (of the refrigerator cases) with the king of meats in these parts: beef. The stalls I checked out had impressive displays of all types of bovine cuts, and they were all ruby-red and seemed to be as fresh as they were plentiful.

The Mercado Central of course has lots of fruit and vegetable vendors inside and outside of the market building. When I was there, stone fruits and tropical fruits alike were flooding the bins at the mercado. Gorgeous, brilliantly-colored cherries and tomatoes sat next to pineapples and mandarins. 

I was probably most impressed, however, by two items, not only because of their outrageously good flavor everywhere I ate them while dining out, but also because they were so inexpensive while being so flavorful: avocados (paltas in Chilean Spanish) and strawberries -- big, juicy, magenta strawberries called frutillas in Chilean Spanish. I consumed both in whatever form I could, wherever and whenever I could. 

Besides boasting all of the magnificent market stalls in the Mercado Central, the market is also home to 22 restaurants within the market space where shoppers can dine on -- what else? -- market-fresh foods ranging from snacks and fruity drinks to multi-course seafood and meat feasts. It was here that I finally got to indulge in the local dish that Pablo Neruda made famous: Caldillo de Congrio, or conger eel stew. He actually wrote a poem called Oda al Caldillo de Congrio! I must admit, it was tasty enough to make anyone wax poetic.

What else? Well, the palmito salad was pretty much worth the price of admission as well. It's a common ingredient in these parts of South America, but in the U.S. it's rare to find a hearts of palm salad. It's refreshing and delicious and always reminds me that I'm in South America when I eat it. Happiness!

Another treat for all the other seafood lovers out there: scallops pil-pil. These are succulent medium-sized scallops with the roe sacks still attached, sautéed in a generous amount of garlic-and herb-infused butter and olive oil. This, people, is why we prepare good seafood simply. Period.

So, when heading to Santiago's Mercado Central, you can shop for a little while, and then be sure to time it so you can check out the teeny but charming restaurants around the perimeter of the market building. Try to go for authentic, less touristy-looking places. You will be rewarded with delicious food, cooked to order, so you have a full belly to go along with your full shopping bags.

MERCADO CENTRAL 

San Pablo 967, Santiago
Sunday - Thursday 6 am - 5 pm
Friday 6 am - 8 pm
Saturday 6 am - 6 pm
https://www.mercadocentral.cl/

RECIPE: Ethereal Mushroom Soup

It is winter in New York. And while this year has been a much milder winter season than in recent years, it's still February. It's still cold in spells and we're all still starved for sun, birds chirping, and the sun setting after 6 pm. Personally, I was really looking forward to a fantastic 2016...and then promptly got sick on January 1st. And again on January 31st. So, I've had a lot of "down time," as it were, to ponder life, and what to eat. I've had plenty of cozy hours indoors, as a sick couch potato and a binge-watcher and a reader and a daydreamer, and in all of this time, I've been making a lot of soups. This is nothing new for me for the early part of the year, and soups are a very healthy way to warm the bones and fill up with a great bowl of healthy tasty stuff. I've made some of the usuals in my repertoire: Tuscan white bean and kale soup, butternut squash puree, Asian beef broth with noodles and veggies, and of course Jewish penicillin a.k.a. matzo ball soup. But while I was between cold and flu, in mid-January, I had a partial Roman posse over for a dinner party -- they were my ladies who were in from Rome and Boston and Rhode Island and some from the NY metro area, and I of course wanted to feed them well. 

After appetizers and stuzzichini and prosecco in the living room, we started in on the meal with a creamy pureed mushroom soup. This was inspired by an amazing version my friend Jessica ordered in Santiago, Chile, at a very spiffy restaurant called Puerto Fuy (see http://bluaubergine.blogspot.com/2015/01/escapes-santiago-chile.html). It was the essence of mushroom earthiness, but it was also somehow light as air. I wanted to recreate that, not only because it was so delicious, but also because my friend Jessica was in attendance at my dinner party, and it had been pretty much exactly two years since we'd eaten that sublime soup. Also, Jessica declares that she is "over chewing" -- and as a result, she tends to puree everything she possibly can. She appreciated my efforts on behalf of her jaw! But really, I was incorporating two of the healthiest, anti-carcinogenic foods (mushrooms and onions) together in one dish. The recipe is simple because I wanted the soup to be a distilled essence. I wanted to taste the variety of mushrooms that went into the soup, and little else. So that's how I made it. I topped it off with fresh thyme and a gastrique of blackberries and balsamic, inspired by the Italian idea of "frutti del bosco" -- literally translated, it's "fruits of the forest," and that's what blackberries and mushrooms are. In Rome, the old lady in my local market square where I sourced porcini and funghi of all kinds sold only two things: mushrooms and berries, in theory, two items that could have been gathered in one trip to the forest. Frutti del bosco. Here they are, and here is my recipe. This is for you, Jess, and for our trip to Chile, and for the old mushroom lady in Campo de Fiori who is no more. Enjoy it on one of these cold winter nights.

ETHEREAL MUSHROOM SOUP
Serves 6-8

4 oz. dried porcini mushrooms
3 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 white onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
2 pints white mushrooms, cleaned and chopped
2 pints mixed Asian mushrooms (shitake, maitake, etc.)
2 pints hen of the woods or oyster mushrooms
4 large portobello mushroom caps
10 cups mushroom stock/vegetable broth (including the water from soaking the dried porcini)  
3/4 cup organic heavy cream  
sprigs of thyme and rosemary
Salt and pepper to taste

- Bring 2 cups of water to a boil, and pour over dried porcini mushrooms in a bowl to soak for at least 10 minutes.
- Wipe mushrooms clean with a damp cloth, cut off stems with dirt attached, and give them all a rough chop so they're all roughly the same size (1/4 - 1/2 inch pieces)
- In a large soup pot, warm the olive oil over medium heat. Toss in the onion and garlic and saute for 60 seconds to soften. Lower the heat slightly and sweat the onion and garlic for another 3 minutes.
- Add the mushrooms, bit by bit, just so there are enough to cover the bottom of the pan. When they cook down a bit, add another bunch to the pot. Continue this way until all of the mushrooms are cooking (and losing water) in the pot. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Remove the soaking porcini from the water with your hands, and ring out the mushrooms so they have as little water content as possible (keep the water!). Chop these and add them to the cooking mushrooms in the pot.
- Strain the mushroom soaking liquid through a mesh strainer lined with a paper towel, to catch any sediment, into a bowl.
- Add the mushroom soaking liquid and mushroom or vegetable stock to the mushrooms in the pot. Allow this to come to a boil, then turn down the heat to low and allow to simmer for 30 minutes, so the flavors meld. You can add a touch of thyme and/or rosemary at this point (but sparingly -- otherwise the herbs tend to taste medicinal).
- Using an immersion blender, puree the mushrooms and stock until smooth. At this point, add the heavy cream and adjust for salt and pepper. Blend again. The soup can be thinned with additional stock if necessary.

Soup can be served with a fresh herb garnish and a blackberry gastrique: simply cook a pint or two of blackberries in a small saucepan with a pinch of salt, a couple of tablespoons of sugar, and 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar. Puree in a blender or food processor when done, and strain through a mesh sieve into a squirt bottle. Simply squeeze a swirl of blackberry gastrique onto the top of the mushroom soup just before serving.

ESCAPES: Chile's Central Coast: Valparaiso and Viña del Mar

At this point in the winter season, when we've all had our fill of snow and frigid temperatures, our sights turn to warmer climates and waterside escapes. One appealing antidote? Chile. And specifically, Chile's Central Coast featuring the towns of Valparaiso and Viña del Mar.

After a long holiday season filled with seemingly endless work hours for both myself and my friend Jessica (a dear friend of mine from my time in Rome who returned to her childhood hometown of Providence, Rhode Island when she left Italy), we were looking for an escape. She's a jewelry designer in constant search of quirky keepsakes from her travels, which she then "translates" into original pieces of wearable art. I'm a chef in constant search of new flavors and cultures from which to draw inspiration in the kitchen. We travel well together. And we decided Chile would be the perfect spot: it offered warm weather in December and January (southern hemisphere summer), good food (ceviche!), good wine (more on that in another post), and interesting and eclectic culture and history (always a good thing for market trips, sightseeing, and interesting travel). An added bonus for me? The beach! With the help of suggestions from a dear high school friend who'd moved to Chile a few years ago, we were able to cobble together a nice 10 day vacation with work benefits built in. We began and ended our journey in the Chilean capital of Santiago (look for my Santiago dining post to come soon), but spent New Year's Eve, and several relaxing days afterwards, kicking off the new year in sunny, 85 degree weather on the Pacific. And though these two sister towns are right next to each other, they offer visitors a yin and yang of Chile's central coast.

Valparaiso

Valparaiso ("Paradise Valley") is historically a port town -- until the Panama Canal opened, it was South America's busiest -- a working class city-on-a-hill. Actually, it's built on more than 45 hills, or cerros, which are covered with colorfully-painted houses, often constructed out of the corrugated metal torn from shipping containers, that look like candy confections tossed on undulating hills tumbling towards an azure sea. "Valpo" as it's called, is Chile's second-largest metropolitan area, and though it's on the sea, it's not a beach town. It's a somewhat chaotic jumble of South American culture and topography, Caribbean color, Germanic and Slavic immigrant influences in architecture and food, and a summertime climate that mirrors L.A. in the daytime and San Francisco at night. Confusing, yes. Eclectic, of course. And it's a lovely place to pass a few languid days recovering from New Year's Eve.

First off, I must mention Valpo's impressive fireworks display. Until the last couple of years (when a certain Middle Eastern city decided theirs needed to be the biggest and brightest on the planet), Valpo's fireworks show was the most expansive and explosive in the world. After having seen it, frankly I'm not sure I'd want one larger or longer. At just under a half an hour, and done over the C-shaped bay that runs along the Pacific coast to several towns north, the fireworks display was synchronized so you could see the grand fireworks right in front of you as well as those in the distance, all themed the same with the same colors displaying at the same time: really something to behold. We celebrated at a restaurant/bar/music hall called La Piedra Feliz, right on the water in the Errázurizneighborhood. 

It was probably the busiest area in the city that night, and knowing public transportation was sketchy for the holiday, forewarned was forearmed: we walked from our lovely apartment across town to the restaurant, and were able to see most of the waterfront area of Valpo in the process. Once we (finally!) arrived, we enjoyed a prix fixe dinner with plenty of champagne and pisco sours. We watched the fireworks out of the window of the restaurant on the second floor, and many locals were gathered on the street below us. Once we toasted to 2014, we wandered around the place -- live music and dancing were everywhere, but of course as a chef, I found my way to hanging out at the bar with the staff: our waiter and the Uruguayan chef, and some locals who were friendly and fun...and made sure we never saw the bottoms of our glasses of delicious Chilean red wine.

We were excited to eat the fresh seafood for which Chile is justly famous, so our dinner hours were spent seeking out great fish spots -- and of course for me, this trip was the "Cevichepalooza" I'd been craving, so I had it at every meal I could manage! At Oda Pacifico, we had the place practically to ourselves, and enjoyed the view out over the hills down to the water (it got windy and chilly the night we went, though it would normally be lovely to sit at a table outside on the back patio). Service here, as in most places we went, was slow but extremely warm, and our waiter advised us on what was fresh that evening. We started with a massive portion of mixed seafood ceviche with passion fruit -- two of my favorite things in the world, together in a big bowl! It was delicious, and perfect with our crisp Chilean sauvignon blanc.

Main courses couldn't live up to the ceviche, but I enjoyed a local specialty: conger eel, here grilled and served over a stew of tomatoes, corn, and peas, topped with peppery watercress. Jess had tilapia cooked in a banana leaf, with a coconut-laced sauce. Again, the portions were huge and we couldn't come close to finishing them, but we did manage to wash it all down with more vino blanco. We were on vacation, after all.

Valpo has countless great vistas from which to view the port and the water below, but one destination on a hill, and viewpoint not to be missed, is poet Pablo Neruda's local home, La Sebastiana. The cozy multi-level house resembles part of a ship and fits in perfectly among the pastel houses surrounding it. The decor is often nautically themed, and is quirky and built to entertain, much like the man himself. It's filled with glasses and plates and artwork and bric-a-brac from Neruda's world travels, and like all of his homes, there is a dedicated bar area where he would mix libations for his guests after a day of writing. The view from his home is undoubtedly inspiring.

Viña del Mar

Just next door is Valparaiso's louder, more social sibling,Viña del Mar. It is the Miami Beach of Chile, to put it in U.S. terms, and it's bustling and full of life while Valpo is relaxed and laid back. The shoreline is both rocky and sandy at turns, and the lawns and flower beds are as manicured as the high-rise hotels and condos lining the beach. There is a downtown as well, and boulevards lined with shops and malls and churches and outdoor arcades. This is no sleepy beach town, and it's been the place where locals and the wealthy and famous from Santiago come to play, where they have second homes. It lacks the character and vistas that Valparaiso has, but it makes up for that with the beauty of the coast and the lively, infectious atmosphere in its streets.

As for the food scene in Viña? Again, seafood is king here, but the variety of dining options is greater. Chile has great primary ingredients, great wine, great pisco. But as for a native cuisine, its neighbor Peru is better known. Case in point? All the ceviches. Seviche, as it's usually written here, comes in so many varieties that it makes sense to go for a sampling of types. At Sazon Peruana, we indulged in the trio at left, which included an octopus seviche with aji amarillo, the spicy Peruvian yellow pepper, as the base. We had local white fish with sweet potato and choclo, the ubiquitous oversized corn kernels. And we had salmon and shrimp with leche de tigre (the citrus juice and spice base of most seviches) with red pepper. I could have bathed in the stuff. We enjoyed mixed grilled seafood atop a salad.

Jess had the seafood soup, a slightly spicy stew of local treats from the Pacific made more substantial with yellow potatoes. And I pushed the boat out, as it were, with a light-as-air fried seafood platter (shrimp, squid, Chilean sea bass) with yucca, tartar sauce, and salsa criolla -- a topping of thinly sliced red onion, cilantro, and fresh chile pepper. The meal at the Peruvian restaurant turned out to be one of the best meals of my trip to Chile!

In Valpo, we lived like locals, renting an apartment in a residential area with a gorgeous view of the entire city from our balcony. In Viña del Mar, we went touristy -- but sometimes, you need to splurge. 

The Sheraton Miramar is perched on a rocky curve of the coast, on the way into town, and it jettisons out into the bright blue-green Pacific. All glass-and-steel, with soaring ceilings, this location was clearly built to allow guests the greatest appreciation of the sea. The shot above was taken from our balcony: the seats to the left are outdoor restaurant tables, as scenic for a seaside lunch as they are in the evening for dinner and drinks, to view the sparkling lights of the bay surrounding you. The pool overlooking the sea is a dramatic spot for sunbathing, by water both salty and fresh. Attached, there is a wonderful spa and gym where you can work up a sweat and then relax with a massage or facial. Not a bad way to pass an afternoon in January!

All in, we had a wonderful time on Chile's central coast -- not enough time, in fact. There were so many small beach towns lining the coasts both north and south of the Valpo area and we weren't staying long enough to explore them. Places like nearby Reñaca, surfer's paradise Concón, former whaling town Quintay, and the beautiful and aristocratic town of Zapallar: each offer a different taste of this stretch of the Chilean coast. We did make it to Quintero for an afternoon of lazing on the beach and eating empanadas, though it took a mini-hike to discover some less-trodden beach paths. Most of the beaches are rocky, and it's hard to get out of sight of the huge tankers that seem to be permanently parked in this part of the Pacific. But the water is beautiful and the trees and topography are stunning. Another positive? We were the only gringas in sight, always a good sign.

La Piedra Feliz

Avenida Err 1054

Valparaiso

+56 (32) 225.6788

www.lapiedrafeliz.cl

Oda Pacifico

Condor 35

Valparaiso

+56 (32) 223.8836

www.odapacifico.cl

La Sebastiana

Ferrari 692

Valparaiso

www.neruda.cl

+56 (32) 225.6606

SHERATON MIRAMAR

Avenida Marina 15

Viña del Mar

+56 (32) 238.8600

www.sheraton.cl

Sazon Peruana

3 Norte 370 Esquina 3 1/2 Poniente

Viña del Mar

+56 (32) 319.1160

www.sazonperuana.cl