Chile Forum

Is there shrimp or fish empanada? Chile has amazing seafood why are all the empanadas meat or chicken or veg or cheese . . .? I realize that the shelf life of fish empanad is short but still. Maybe fresh seafood empanada would be great.

Seems like you never made it to the coast. It´s full of seafood empanadas there, mostly shrimp-cheese empanadas (one of the greatest inventions on earth, in my modest opinon) or others with a kind of "pino" of mixed shell food or other sea food-cheese combinations, such as machas, ostiones and even locos (kind of a crime, though).

isolde100 wrote:Is there shrimp or fish empanada? Chile has amazing seafood why are all the empanadas meat or chicken or veg or cheese . . .? I realize that the shelf life of fish empanad is short but still. Maybe fresh seafood empanada would be great.

Because.... most Chileans don't eat that much seafood. It's another myth.... that simply having a long coastline and theoretical access to the resource would provoke a logical assumption. But it doesn't work out that way. It's a long cultural and technological/logistical history story and it would cost you a beer or two so I won't go into it now. Chile exports considerable seafood of course but the per capital consumption is among the lowest of countries with a Pacific coastline.

Chile: seafood consumption about 7 kg/pers/year. Chileans consume about 75 kg/pers/year of other meats. For Perú: seafood consumption about 22 kg/pers/year. Spain about 30 kg, Japan no surprise at about 50 kg/pers/year.

Stop thinking logically here. It will only make your head hurt.

I'm headed to San Antonio this weekend.
How do I recognize the place?

dmwbmw2 wrote:I'm headed to San Antonio this weekend.
How do I recognize the place?

Take the Autopista del Sol from Santiago and hit the brakes hard when you see the sea

It seems like you see the seafood empanadas around Semana Santa more than other parts of the year.

In Quintay, we had some good seafood-cheese empanadas. They had a lot of variety, crab-cheese, shrimp-cheese, scallop-cheese, etc. I am not sure of the name, but Quintay is tiny so it shouldn't be hard to find.

Last winter in Concon and Vina del Mar, we found that you could buy a seafood empanada almost anywhere you could buy a meat empanada, and fried empanadas were the norm. Except at Unimarc, if I recall correctly. Empanadas with machas ranged from average where it was highly suspect that the machas were canned, to delicious.

Since moving 12 hours or so farther south, fresh fish is widely available, but not in empanadas. The main empanada options seem to be between carne picada and carne molida. Fortunately empanadas are baked more often than fried here, unless you order cheese empanaditas from the neighborhood "restobeer." I think a lot of what you'll encounter, empanada-wise and in general with food in Chile, find depends on where you're living or visiting. I do miss seafood empanadas, though, and may be able to convince my husband to try making us some using any fish except for erizos (not a fan!)

eeuunikkeiexpat wrote:

patagoniax wrote:Because.... most Chileans don't eat that much seafood.

I understand the "most" part but the ones not part of that most go beyond what most of us extranjeros enjoy.

I was referring to the widely held belief, fostered by the guidebooks, that since there is a long coast line and much seafood exported, that obviously the country must consume vast quantities. Yes, there are some individuals who eat everything they find in the tidepools. And yes, many coastal towns understandably show consumption above the national average. But as a country, on a per-capita basis, the average consumption of seafood by the citizenry is amazingly low.

eeuunikkeiexpat wrote:Pure shellfish and maybe fish and depending on the batch can be very messy and dripping (they are not put into the fryer until you place the order). Put some of their homemadre pebre on it and you are in heaven.

ah, yes... "messy and dripping"!
we can add such exquisite fried empanadas de mariscos...
are served always fresh - at a small cafe in the very back corner...
at main fish market at the puerto (in arica, of course)
their homemade pebre is also a most excellent (and requisite) condiment
aka "heaven"...

then please walk over to the waterside fence...
under a minute...ok, ok, maybe three minutes...
(if you must stop to grab a cold cervesa [to assist your hot mariscos])

now - regard the "locals" begging to see if you might share your empanada.
or, simply buy them a nice, fresh, sloppy bucket of fish offal...
distribute accordingly as you then enjoy the action...
fear not, any such largess will be very much appreciated!