Pastel de choclo recipe: Chile’s corn and beef pie

This pastel de choclo recipe makes Chile’s summer pie: pino, a cumin-scented stew of minced beef and onion, under a crust of ground sweetcorn and basil, with chicken, egg and olives in between. The key is to cook the corn paste on the hob until it thickens, before it goes into the oven.

Anthropologist Sonia Montecino places its origin in colonial kitchens, probably with Mapuche cooks working for Spanish settlers. In Chile it is baked in a paila de greda, a clay bowl, in the southern summer that also brings the Chilean cherries harvest.

Ingredients

The corn cooks twice, in the pan and in the oven; skip the first and the pie weeps.

• 500 g minced beef
• 400 g onions (2 large), finely diced
• 30 ml neutral oil
• 2 tsp sweet paprika
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 150 ml beef stock or water
• 300 g boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 3 hard-boiled eggs, quartered
• 12 black olives
• 1 kg sweetcorn kernels, fresh (about 8 cobs) or frozen and thawed
• 150 ml whole milk
• 40 g butter
• 20 g fine cornmeal
• 12 basil leaves
• 15 g sugar
• Salt and black pepper

Method

1. Sweat the onions in the oil over low heat for 15 minutes, without colour. Their water has to evaporate now, or it will seep out under the crust later.
2. Raise the heat, add the beef, paprika, cumin and 8 g salt and brown for 5 minutes. Pour in the stock and simmer for 10 minutes: the pino should be juicy, not soupy. Leave to cool, because a cold pino holds its layer.
3. Poach the chicken in simmering salted water for 15 minutes, then tear it into large pieces.
4. Blend the corn with the milk and basil to a coarse paste.
5. Melt the butter in a wide pan, add the corn paste and the cornmeal and stir over medium heat for 8-10 minutes, until it bubbles and thickens like porridge. The starch must set here; a raw paste turns watery in the oven. Season with salt.
6. Heat the oven to 200 °C. Spread the pino in a 2-litre ovenproof dish, or in 6 individual clay bowls, and arrange the chicken, eggs and olives on top. Cover with the corn and seal it against the rim, so the juices stay below.
7. Sprinkle with the sugar and bake for 30-35 minutes, until the edges bubble and the top is dark gold: the sugar caramelises into a thin crust. Rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Sugar on top, tomato salad on the side

The sugar is part of the dish in Chile. The usual side is a salad of sliced tomato and onion with oil and salt, whose acidity cuts the sweetness of the corn.

Pastel de choclo recipe FAQ

Can I use frozen or tinned sweetcorn? Frozen works well once thawed and drained. Tinned corn holds too much water, warns the Chilean cook Pilar Hernández, and makes a loose crust.

Can I make it ahead? Yes. The pino keeps for two days in the fridge. The assembled pie can wait a day, chilled; bake it 10 minutes longer.

Is there a version without meat? Baked on its own, the corn paste is pastelera de choclo, a Chilean dish in its own right.