"Curanto"... a typical chilean meal

The "Curanto" is a typical meal of Chiloe, Chile.

It`s traditionally prepared outdoors, reciving the name "curanto in a hole"
by being prepared into a quite deep dug ground hole.

Even when the preparation takes a couple of hours, the kind of ritual that
takes place is a social event where non less than 5 people work together so
that everything goes well and, certainly, the wait worth.


This meal can also be prepared into a pressure cooker, but the taste isn`t the same. By this way itsn`t called "curanto", but "Pulmai".

Ingredients

• clams
• choros or cholgas
• navajuelas
• picorocos
• chicken
• smoked pork
• sausages
• beans, peas and potatoes (with the shell include);
• chapaleles and milcaos.

* There isn`t a limited amount for each ingredient.

Preparation

First, dig a hole about a meter and a half deep in the ground, and fill it
with large stones and wood sticks. After thist, make a campfire to heat the
stones. Then, remove the wood sticks almost burnt, and pour the bags with
shellfish and cover them with pangue leaves (nalcas). This can also be done
with fig leaves.

Put the seasoned meat over them and re-cover this with pangue or fig leaves.

Finally, put above the vegetables, chapaleles and milcaos and cover it all
with potato or wet flour bags. This will simulate a pressure cooker.

After an hour, an hour and a half, the ingredients will be already cooked
(steamed), and the food can be withdrawn by layers, removing the pangue or
fig leaves, serving the dishes ready to be consumed.