Last weekend I visited the island of Chiloé in Chile’s extreme south. While there, I had the opportunity to try two of Chiloé’s best known dishes. They both feature seafood, something that Chiloé is very well known for.
The first of these two dishes is called Curanto. As seen in the picture, it contains (from left to right): a sausage, two dumpling-style potatoes, a chicken thigh, a pork rib (not visible in the photo), mussels, and clams. This plate served three people and came with individual cups of almost unbearably salty broth.
I know there is awful glare from the window, but this second dish was absolutely incredible. It’s a soup called Paila de Mariscos, paila being the name for the vessel it’s served in and mariscos meaning seafood. It’s a delicious seafood broth filled with clams, mussels, a few other types of mollusk meat that I couldn’t identify and a big piece of salmon. The broth was beautifully seasoned with garlic, tomato, cilantro, onion, and garnished with parsley. It was surprisingly filling for a broth based soup, I wish I could have finished it!
