Pastel de choclo

Pastel de Choclo!  We used this recipe and the girls enjoyed helping with the process.

First we chopped the corn off the cob--the recipe did not specify that we should cook the corn first, so we didn't.

We pulsed the corn with basil in the blender. We really either needed to go way more low-tech (mortar & pestle) or way more high-tech (food processor) here.  The blender didn't really work very well at all, but we made do.

We added the milk slowly as we cooked the corn mixture, sauteing it in a bit of butter.  AND we learned about "salt to taste"!  :-)

Sauteing the onions and garlic

We added the soy meat (a.k.a. "ground beef") and cooked until brown, seasoning with cumin.

We greased the ceramica de Pomaire with butter

The beef mixture goes in first

Next come hard boiled eggs, pieces of chicken (we just omitted that completely, as we only have one type of soy meat here), and also (optionally) olives.  

The corn mixture goes on the top, spread out to cover everything below.  We didn't have a way to measure how much corn mixture to make.  We thought we made a ton, but it would have been nice to have even more.  Next time I'll allot about 2.5 ears of corn per pastel.  After the corn mixture comes a sprinkle of sugar to help the top of the pastel carmelize.

Here those babies are, baking away in the oven--the house smells AMAZING!

Finished product!  YUM!

Hopefully this will hold me over on the airplane tonight!  Off to the airport in less than an hour.  Breakfast in Atlanta!