Continuing our exploration of the different types of chipas, we move on today, to the chipa guazú, or “big bread” in the indigenous Guarani language. This one feels less like a bread to me, simply because there’s no actual flour of any sort in it. On the other hand, as I talked about in my first post on chipas, the original “bread” was a mix of water and mashed yuca root, cooked over an open flame. Despite no flour in the form we typically think of it, i.e., a dry powder, there’s plenty of starch. The guazú (or guasú) is based on corn rather than yuca.

What do we have here…. 1 kg (2-1/4 lb) of corn (I used thawed, frozen, for convenience, as I’m sure most people do these days for something like this, though traditionally, I’d imagine cutting all the kernels off multiple cobs – which for a kilo would probably be somewhere between 15-20); 5 eggs, 240 ml (1 cup) of milk, 115 gm (1/2 cup) of melted butter, 2 chopped onions, 300 gm (10-1/2 oz) grated cheese, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper (I used white pepper, because then you don’t get little black specks all through the chipa).

Sauté the onions in about half the butter until just turning golden brown.

You’ll probably need to do this in 2-3 batches, depending on the size of your blender – I did it in two. Blend all the ingredients, including the sautéed onions) except the cheese until you’ve got a coarse batter.

Mix in the cheese. Taste a little, add more salt and pepper if you like – I didn’t find that it needed it. And keep in mind the grated cheese is going to add some saltiness to the final cooked chipa.

Pour into a lightly oiled baking dish.

And, bake in a 180C/350F oven. Until it’s done. A lot of this is going to depend on the size of your baking dish. The recipe that I was originally given used a dish that was 25x25cm (10x10in), whereas mine was about 18x28cm (7x11in), so it ended up with the chipa guazú being thicker than the original. In the original recipe it took about 45 minutes, this one  took right around an hour until it was golden brown, and a toothpick inserted came out clean, like baking a cake.

Cut into portions and serve! This is very rich and filling – we cut this one into 8 pieces.