Celebrate Christmas The Chilean Way

By Melissa Wiley in Food on Dec 19, 2012 9:40PM

If the Mayan Apocalypse plays out, Christmas may well lapse into full-fledged oblivion. All the more reason, we say, to heat up the kitchen now and adopt some dishes from south of the border. Way south of the border.

A few weeks ago, we savored a succulent Chilean spread at Boka courtesy of Chef Guillermo Munoz, who has helmed critically acclaimed Latitude 42 in Patagonia and is now adapting to chillier climes in Ottawa, where his wife is serving at the Chilean Embassy.

To evoke the smells and tastes of home this time of year, he cooks up traditional Chilean Christmas bread and sips on some monkey’s tail, a cocktail designed to instill nothing less than all-out simian levels of good cheer. We asked him for some recipes so we could cook these Chilean treats for our own Christmas feast.

Monkey’s Tail
This cocktail combines fat, fat, fat and sugar with coffee and Chilean Pisco. How could it get any better than that?

Ingredients:

4 cups of whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup condensed milk
½ cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons instant coffee
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cinnamon stick
3 cloves
1 cup grappa
4 tablespoons Chilean Pisco

Preparation:

1. Bring the milk, heavy cream, condensed milk, sugar, vanilla extract, cloves and cinnamon to a boil. Stir well to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat and add the instant coffee previously dissolved in the Pisco.

2. Let it cool for 2 hours in the fridge. Then add the grappa and let the mixture rest for 24 hours.

3. Serve very cold the next day.

Christmas Bread
This holiday bread is prepared everywhere in Chile during December, commemorating Christmas. It is always served with chilled Monkey`s Tail. The features of the dish evoke both German and Italian cuisines as a reflection of those two communities through Chilean history.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup light brown sugar
½ cup sugar
4 eggs, at room temperature
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon soda
1 tablespoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon nutmeg
¾ teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons
zest of one orange
zest of one lemon
1 tablespoon strong brewed coffee
½ cup pisco
½ cup evaporated milk
2 tablespoons anise-flavored liqueur
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 cup nuts, finely chopped
½ cup dried cherries, finely chopped
½ cup golden raisins, family chopped
½ cup raisins, finely chopped

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

2. Cream butter with the sugars until smooth and creamy.

3. Add eggs one at a time until well blended.

4. Sift the dry ingredients together. Stir the fruit zests into the dry ingredients.

5. Whisk the coffee, Pisco, evaporated milk, anise flavoring, vanilla, and vinegar together.

6. Alternate adding the wet and dry ingredients to the butter/egg mixture, blending well.

7. Fold in the nuts and the dried fruit.

8. Line the bottom of a 9-inch spring form pan with a circle of wax paper.

9. Spread the batter evenly into the pan.

10. Bake cake for 45 minutes. Without removing the cake from the oven, carefully sprinkle some sifted powdered sugar over the top of the cake, then bake cake for 15 minutes more.

11. Check cake to see if it's done; a wooden skewer inserted into the middle of the cake should come out clean. If the cake is not yet done, return it to the oven and check it again every 5 or 10 minutes until done.

12. Let cake cool 15 minutes in the pan on a rack.

13. While the cake is cooling, make the icing. Sift 1 cup confectioner's sugar into bowl. Add melted butter, pinch of salt, and ½ teaspoon vanilla. Stir in 1-2 tablespoons milk, or more to reach desired consistency.

14. Remove cake from pan, and drizzle top with icing.

15. Cake keeps for up to two weeks in the refrigerator, wrapped in plastic.