Pancutras - A Chilean Recipe

As we began our food journey Jill and I tried to think of a way to find new and exciting meal ideas.  First we thought we would look up different restaurant types, but it seemed a little limiting.  Next we typed our way to some recipe websites.  As you can imagine there are a plethora of recipe sites.  Finally we landed on the idea of trying different foods from around the world.  So, with Globe in hand we picked our first country on our foodstuff finding tour of the world.

Chile

I am always disappointed when a gardening show turns into a Cook's Corner.  In the same manner, I am not going to reduce this cooking blog into a travelogue.  That being said, as we are taking a trip around the world to try new cuisine I would like to imbue this blog with the international flavor of the countries with which we will be dining.

Chile is situated south of Peru and west of Bolivia and Argentina in South America.  It was originally populated by the Incas and Araucanos until 1541 when it was adopted by Spain.  It was under Spaniard rule until 1818.  So, it obviously has some spanish gusto.

Pancutras - Rich Broth with Fresh Pasta (sounds delicious)

Simple Ingredients.

Ingredients

* 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
* 1 Medium Onion — Chopped
* 1 Clove Garlic — Chopped
* 1 Medium Bell Pepper — Chopped
* 1 Medium Carrot — Chopped
* 6 Cups Beef Broth
* Salt And Pepper — To Taste
* 3 Tablespoons Parsley — Chopped
* 1 Pound Fresh Pasta

Directions

Saute onion, garlic, bell pepper, and carrot in oil for 3 minutes. Add broth, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Return soup to a boil add pasta. Simmer until pasta is done, 3 minutes for fresh pasta. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Jill and I will both be contributing to this blog. We have different tastes and time demands like most couples.  So, we will both review each of the meals we prepare, cook and enjoy.

Bring to a boil - then simmer for 10 mins.



Jill's Review

I was excited and a little nervous to try this dish just because if my family didn't like it they would say "It's O.K." and then a half hour later they would be making themselves peanut butter sandwiches. But then I  got going and it was fun. Everything I needed I had in the pantry or garden so there was no extra trip to the store for an ingredient I didn't have. It was easy to cook . What took the longest was chopping up the veggies but Matt helped so that wasn't bad either. This amount will feed 4 people well if you add some bread and a salad. If you need to feed more just add extra noodles and veggies. It was very filling and I would make it again.

Return to boil and add pasta.

Matt's Review

I was happy to see that we could use a lot of the items that we had from our garden; in fact, all of the vegetables came from our garden!  We used smaller carrots and used more of them - they are much tastier than the big tasteless carrots you get at the market.  Everything was chopped up fairly fine.  I thought it seemed like a lot of onion when we started.  We did not use fresh pasta - we are not quite to that point yet.  We used dry egg noodles and used about 1/2 a pound - we weren't sure how many dry noodles to substitute for 1 lb. of fresh.

I liked it.  It was filling - this recipe made enough for 4, maybe 5 people depending on the portion size.  We did not add any salt and it was fine - the beef broth was salty enough.  It was easy to make, taking about an hour from start to finish - easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy!  I would add a slice of buttered french bread for a great meal.


The finished product - feeds four.

Jill and I did our reviews separately and came up with basically the same responses.  I think for our first international meal we did quite well.  No PB&J tonight!

If any of you have any favorite recipes we would love to hear from you!