C[omp]ute

From: "andrew cooke" <andrew@...>

Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2007 17:39:45 -0400 (CLT)

Just had a rather good lunch - a pastrami and pebre sandwich with a nice
glass of dry SB (Tierra del Fuego reserve 2006).

We're slowly shifting how we buy our food (I hope) - Saturday mornings we
intend to visit an open-air market (as we used to do when we live in Las
Condes, although this is a different market, down Tobalaba, near the
Principio de Gales metro stop).

The local supermarket is sliding downhill - it's charging crazy prices for
fruit and veg, while the in-store bakery has been reduced to warming up
bread made elsewhere.  So now we're getting fruit + veg for the week at
the market, and bread at a small bakery across on Pedro de Valdivia (La
Baguette - it's the only place I've found nearby that bakes it's onw bread
- a bit further away there's another place at the the back of the
three-legged star towers where Carlos Antunez meets Providencia).

Anyway, I was going to give a recipe for pebre, since I think I make a
pretty good pebre (it got approval at Pauli's party last month).  But
really, it's probably not going to be that useful because (1) I don't have
any idea about quantities and (2) I start with a bag of "greens" from the
market (which costs about 50p - one dollar).

Ignoring those issues, here's what you do:

- buy a bag of the green stuff.  This looks to be about 50% (by volume)
chopped cilantro (fresh coriander).  There might be some parsley in there
too.  The other 50% is a mix of finely chopped cebollines (spring onions)
and ordinary (but mild and/or rinsed) onions.

- add an equal volume of chopped tomatoes.  Just the normal round red
things, or the italian ones if they're in season.  They need to be chopped
fairly small (aim for cubes 5mm on a side, sat), which means sharpening
your knife first, then slicing all three ways.

- slop in some lemon juice, olive oil, some kind of vinegar (apple or
wine), salt, some crushed garlic.  Mix

How much you add depends on how juicy the tomatoes were, and how runny you
want things - my pebre remains pretty dry, but it's still clearly a "goo"
and not a "salad".

Volume-wise - I made a batch from one bag with 6 or 7 tomatoes (not very
big ones), one large lemon, three cloves of garlic.  That would be much
less than one onion - perhaps a half - but a lot more cilantro (coriander)
than you might expect (it squashes up!).

Leave to stand for a while.  There's a lot - I put half in the freezer,
but don't know what it will be like defrosted.

Andrew