The first meal was from Mercado Central as planned, but unexpectedly in the form of home cooking. I was aware to keep out of the huge central foodcourt with average tourist-orientated restaurants and waiter touts and to try one of the more local places in the peripheries (to try the dish of caldillo de congrio particularly) but jetlag set in and it seemed more relaxing to cook over a small kitchenette.
With a bit of help from a nearby supermarket for garlic, parsley and lemon (they don't sell alcohol at 5pm which is odd), I managed to prepare the various shellfishes obtained. Specifically I obtained mussels (500g for CLP500 = AUD$1!), clams 500g and "machas" clams 500g (for CLP2500), half-shell scallops (10 for CLP4000) and Chilean abalone called locos (500g for CLP5500). Had I more appetite, I would've also liked to get some fish or congrio and some octopus. I also saw a weird dome of a shellfish where a little beak could be seen opening and closing within it... without knowing it, I wasn't daring enough. I already had enough movement from the clams (which is a great sign of freshness!)
The oddities of each:
- Mussels - some were very large and had the adornment of sea rocks embedded (ie. wild). The meat varies from orange to black (I wondered if this was an off sign, but tasted the same and a restaurant the next day also had black ones). Perhaps it is something about being wild but they all had large digestive tracks present/black stuff;
- Clams - also varied from small/normal size to very large.
- Machas clams - described in a book as a razor clam (but I'm used to much longer and thinner "pen" ones). They had a lot of grit and in hindsight I should have soaked them for a while first;
- Locos - these abalone-types were the best of the lot. Knife and fork like thick steak and relatively tender after 25mins in simmering water (as instructed by the fishmonger). The flavour was more standard shellfish and less abalone (compared to Australian ones);
- Scallops - quite small meat once the roe and black tracks were removed. Probably could have used a bit more of a rinse too for the grit.
Overall lessions learnt are that the versions in Australia have probably been somewhat cleaned or soaked already and hence less grit (or maybe I just use a good volume of white wine which cleans them out). The flavours were fine but I still thought the quality was a little disappointing. The exception was the locos which are relatively cheap, full of thick meat and delicious.