Charquicán (Chilean Vegetable and Beef Stew)

By noon, everywhere in Chile it smells the same. Lunch—the main meal of the day—is on the way: From the windows of houses, school kitchens, and restaurants, the distinctive aroma of sofrito—the obligatory initial step for many Chilean dishes—makes your stomach rumble. Chances are high that what's for lunch is nutritious and homey charquicán, a timeless stew found on Chilean tables of all kinds. 

Charquicán is a democratic dish, a mixture of semi-mashed potatoes and zapallo squash, ground or diced beef, and colorful seasonal veggies, all of it brought to life by a sofrito. In Chile, sofrito is an aromatic concoction of sautéed minced onion, carrot, and red bell pepper, seasoned with cumin, ají de color (the local paprika), oregano, black pepper, and, very often, garlic. Getting the sofrito right is half of the success for this dish, and also a great way of getting to know the core of Chilean cuisine.

It is interesting that the word “charquicán” itself reveals its pre-Hispanic origins: The most accepted theories agree that it combines “charki,” which means “sun-dried meat” in the Quechua language, and “kangkan” or “cancan,” meaning “roasted” or “stewed” in Mapudungun, the Mapuche language. Originally, it was made with salted, sun-dried meat from guanacos (a wild llama relative); after the Spaniards colonized, horse meat and then beef became popular. Nowadays, while charqui is a popular travel snack—mostly sold near tolls along the highway—it is very seldom that Chileans cook the original meat jerky version ("jerky," it's worth noting, also comes from the word charki). 

The most common, everyday version is made with diced or ground lean beef, but the dish can change with the location and seasons. In the summer, charquicán might transform into tomaticán, a version of the stew where seasonal ripe tomatoes and the local humero corn are added. There are also versions entirely without meat, like luchicán and cochayuyicán, which use luche or cochayuyo seaweeds instead of meat; the almost extinct vaicán, with dried hake and sometimes seafood favored in the Bío Bío region; and, curiously retaining the same name, a meatless version—same as my recipe, except for the meat—usually served at upscale restaurants as a riff on the original version and eaten as a side with long-cooked meats such at plateada, the Chilean version of brisket. 

The late Chilean folklorist Oreste Plath has described many more variations of charquicán in his articles about Chilean cuisine, masterfully compiled by the Nacional Library in “Geografía Gastronómica de Chile” (and available in full here). Whatever form it takes, it is always a filling, balanced, and tasty dish. 

The recipe I share here includes a small personal innovation: Most recipes call for either adding the beef to the cooked sofrito in the pot, making it impossible to brown the beef and develop a delicious fond, or browning the beef first but then cooking the sofrito on top of it, which overcooks the beef and leads to cardboardy meat. To achieve proper browning while not overcooking the beef, my version starts by browning diced beef—my personal preference over ground beef—then removing it from the pot to cook the sofrito; then the beef isn't returned to the pot until much later in the cooking process ensuring that it won’t over cook and dry out.

To simplify the cooking process and reduce dishes, I also have designed the recipe to use just one pot. To ensure each ingredient is cooked just the right amount, I've carefully timed the addition of each one. Many other recipes take a different approach by simultaneously cooking the meat, potatoes and squash, and seasonal vegetables in three separate vessels at once. While this cuts down on the cooking time, it means you'll have more dishes to wash. But, even more importantly, my testing has made it clear that cooking everything separately and then combining them towards the end of the process results in a dish that is not as cohesive in flavor or texture as one where it's all stewed together. 

In Chile we eat charquicán by itself or topped with one or two fried eggs—always with a very runny yolk. I recommend the latter and also adding a few pieces of quick pickled onions or the old style Chilean cebollas en escabeche (red wine vinegar slow-pickled onions); the recipe is included below.