A rather off-beat night for us. We were contacted many moons ago by a producer from A&E, putting together a new show called something like One Thousand Ways to Dine. I don’t know when the show debuts, or if it already has. My understanding is that the format will be to pick a particular way to enjoy eating out, and then showcase several places that offer that. So, in our case, I’m assuming that it’s a show about hidden away in-home restaurants, or something similar to that. We agreed to participate, and this last weekend, the night of filming rolled around. It was a bit of a scramble as one party of three and one party of two, canceled at last minute, claiming possible covid infections. Better safe than sorry, but it left us with two people reserved for the night. We got a couple of our friends to join the table, and the local film crew came up with two friends of theirs to join as well. While the plan, as communicated to us, was for the crew to be as unobtrusive as possible, “fly on the wall” approach (it was actually a crew we’d worked with before, for the features on Secret Eats, and Ultra Eye). Let’s say they weren’t fly on the wall in their approach, to the point we were worried that the guests were getting annoyed.

This dish was specifically requested by the producer – well, after looking at some examples of “signature dishes” that we’ve offered time and again. This is our Tiradito de Langostinos, or prawn ceviche of sorts. The prawns, raw, are cured in a mix of lime juice, strawberry, ginger, garlic, salt, pepper, and chili oil. Garnished with brined cucumber and radish, mint and cilantro leaves, toasted garlic, peanuts, and sesame seeds. Served with Bodega Chandon Rosé sparkling.

First off, older photo, in the midst of all the filming, I forgot to get a photo of this one. It’s our version of a Chilean chowder, Caldillo de Congrio, using abadejo, a type of pollack as the fish, rather than conger eel, and mixed with potatoes, zucchini, peas, tomatoes, onion, garlic, smoked chili, fish stock. Only thing missing in this photo is we add a bit of chopped cilantro and parsley to it that we didn’t used to. Accompanied by Finca Las Moras “Los Intocables”  Chardonnay 2021.

Of course, during the filming of a show, we had to have some sort of something go wrong. I’d made beautiful zucchini and ricotta malfatti, something I’ve made many a time before.  I have no idea why, but these hit the boiling water and just… dissolved… into a mess of floating bits of zucchini and melted ricotta. Seriously, no idea. Luckily I had a package of paccheri pasta and a spare zucchini, some fresh ricotta, Brazil nuts, and green onions. It put a delay on things while getting another pot of water boiling and cooking the pasta, but we got it done, and perhaps, thank goodness we only had six people, because I didn’t have enough pasta for many more than that. The pasta is tossed with the sauce that would have been under the malfatti, a spicy cilantro velouté. The wine, Monteviejo “Festivo” Rosado 2021.

And our ever developing version of a classic Ceviche de Pollo, chicken ceviche (not raw chicken, it’s more about the initial prep and the sauce). Chicken breast, marinated for several hours in lime juice, salt, pepper, and cumin, then dredeged in flour and fried. The sauce a thickened puree of chicken stock, orange and lemon juices, ginger, garlic, red bell pepper, red onion, rocoto chili, and cumin. Olive oil roasted Andean papines, and a little garnish of red onions, herbs, lemon, and salt. To drink, Terrazas de Los Andes Cabernet Franc Reserva 2020.

And, ending the night with a dulce de leche and rum cheesecake, topped with caramelized fine dice of apples, and more of the dulce de leche and rum. To wash it all down, Las Perdices “Partridge” Dulce Natural 2021.

I’ll let you all know more when I know more about when the show is going to air.