Asado

Our program at Chile West is designed to give our guests a sampling of the huge variety of fishing available along the Carretera Austal, as well as to enable some real exposure to the wonderful people and culture in Southern Chile.

One evening our guests get treated to an asado– a traditional Chilean dish consisting of meat cooked over an open fire.  Chris Price, our manager at Chile West, lives in Coyhaique with his family, and he describes Asado Ramirez Style– his family’s asado– below.

“My best asado experiences are always with the family. We cook the lamb (cordero) ‘al asador’. This is generally a four hour process which takes place in my mother-in-laws wood shed; we call it our ‘quincho’. We’ll start the fire around noon or so to get a good bed of coals going. There is lots of smoke in the eyes, drinking of beer and red wine from the ‘La Seina’, which is the name my father-in-law gave to the bota bag (Seina is a particular color of a horse),  and storytelling while watching the lamb cook slowly and the kids run around.

When the lamb is finished cooking we like to eat in the wood shed keeping the meat close to the coals so that it stays hot. The idea is to cut off your own piece of meat as needed.

Accompanying the lamb is boiled potatoes, different salads such as sliced cucumbers, lettuce dressed with oil and lemon juice, ‘ensalada Chilena’ (which is julienned tomatoes and onions dressed with salt, cilantro, oil and lemon juice), potato salad and sopapillas (fried bread) with pebre and more red wine.

We never can eat all of the lamb so we usually take naps and then reheat the leftovers for another feast in the evening. Of course, nothing goes with lamb asado like red wine…”