Walk past any Santiago metro exit or busy street corner and you will find a cart with a vat of bubbling oil and a stack of sopaipillas: flat rounds of dough made with mashed pumpkin, which gives them their color and a gentle sweetness, fried until puffed and golden. They cost very little and they are eaten hot from a paper napkin, usually dressed with pebre, Chile's everyday relish of chopped tomato, onion, cilantro, chili, oil and a little vinegar, or with a squeeze of mustard or ketchup.

On rainy winter days families make them at home and serve them sweet instead, soaked in a hot syrup of chancaca, unrefined cane sugar, as sopaipillas pasadas. The savory version with pebre is the street classic, and it makes a fine, cheap, crowd pleasing snack for any race weekend, especially one with a wet forecast.

Pebre

Ingredients

• 3 ripe tomatoes
• 1/2 white onion
• 1/2 cup (20 g) fresh cilantro
• 1 ají verde or jalapeño
• 1 garlic clove
• 3 tablespoons (45 ml) olive oil
• 1 tablespoon (15 ml) red wine vinegar or lemon juice
• 3/4 teaspoon fine salt

The sopaipillas

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 cups (440 g) all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon fine salt
• 3/4 cup (180 g) pure pumpkin purée
• 4 tablespoons (55 g) lard or vegetable shortening
• about 1/3 cup (80 ml) warm water
• about 6 cups (1.5 liters) vegetable oil

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