Passport & Plate - "Tomar once"
Chile | Tuesday, March 3, 2015 | 5 photos
Ingredients
INGREDIENTS FOR DOUGH
• 2 cups of flour
• 100 g butter or margarine
• 1 egg
• Warm wáter
• Salt
INGREDIENTS FOR FILLING
• 4 apples
• Blueberry jam
• Sugar
• Water or sherry
How to prepare this recipeFirst, peel and slice apples. Add a bit of sherry (you can put water instead of it, just to make apples release their juices). Take them out.
To make dough, use a big bowl. First, sieve flour. Measure it with a cup. Add small pieces of butter or margarine for an easier homogenization. Add an egg and a bit of salt too.
Mix every ingredient well. Then, add warm water gently. Knead dough, giving it way of ball, until it remains no longer sticky. Take it out from the bowl and knead it a little more on a table. Keep it in the fridge for half an hour.
After that, stretch dough. Cover the shape you’re going to use with a little flour to prevent stickiness. Then, put apple slices on dough and cover it all with a thin layer of blueberry jam. Cut off leftover dough to use it as strip shaped decoration. Make its fringes be decorative to get a better presentation. Sprinkle a little sugar on top and bake it at 180°C for about 30 minutes.
It’s recommended to bake the cake just from oven bottom firstly, for about 20 minutes, and then from both sides.
The story behind this recipeAt six o'clock, the streets of Chile are bursting with people who go home carrying fresh bread. They gather to “tomar once”. This expression has different versions, but what everyone agrees with is that it comes from the word "aguardiente" (spirit), that has eleven letters and used to be a code. Today, it’s still used, but spirit isn’t drunk at “tomar once” anymore.
When Chileans invite you to "tomar once" at their home, they are offering you an evening long conversation, along with a cup of tea or coffee, fresh bread, cheese, tomatoes, avocados, butter, ham and, for special occasions, Kuchen too.
This delicious cake was introduced by German settlers. I didn’t know about it and learned how to make it last year, when I was lucky to get a college scholarship to study in South America. I lived for a whole year with a German girl (who didn’t know how to cook Kuchen) and a Chilean boy who thought that she was going to prepare it every single day.
Three of us liked cooking (and eating) and sharing beautiful moments around the table. Even though we were from different countries, we understood to each other perfectly ... And, sometimes, we got to die of laughing!
I cooked this recipe just in Coquimbo and, when I made it back today, I was imagining Katja and Jaime being at the kitchen and talking about how were their days, telling stories or making jokes while they gazed me kneading.
