Ingredients · Spice

Merkén Chile

Capsicum annuum var. longum · Solanaceae (nightshade family)

Merkén Chile
The ají cacho de cabra — goat's horn chile — smoked, and the backbone of merkén, a Mapuche condiment from southern Chile. Deep wood smoke over a mild-to-medium heat. The pods are picked in February when they turn from green to red, dried in the sun, hung over a wood fire, dried again, and ground, traditionally in a stone mortar. There are two grades: natural merkén is chile and salt, especial is roughly 70 per cent chile, 20 per cent salt and 10 per cent coriander. Ours is the especial family, with cumin as well.

What it’s like, and how to use it

The partFruit
KindSpice
CaffeineCaffeine-free
Where it is fromChile
TasteDeep wood smoke, mild-to-medium heat, a citrusy herbal warmth from coriander and an earthy cumin base

How to use it

On fried or scrambled eggs, avocado toast, roast vegetables and grilled salmon. As a dry rub. Stirred into oil as a finishing condiment. It already contains salt, so season accordingly. Its smoke is gentler than chipotle's and its heat lower than cayenne's — it is a seasoning rather than a heat source.

With food

Eggs. Salmon and seafood. Potato and roast vegetables. Lentils. Cheese. Avocado. Beef. Olive oil.

With spices

It is already a blend — coriander and cumin are in it. Add garlic, black pepper or smoked paprika if anything.

With tea

Not a tea ingredient, though Lapsang Souchong meets it smoke for smoke.

Its story

Where it comes from

From Mapuche cuisine in La Araucanía, southern Chile — the historic production zone lies between the Bío Bío and Toltén rivers, on the eastern slopes of the Nahuelbuta range. Producers are mostly family units. Our lot's farm is unconfirmed. The name comes from Mapudungun mezkeñ.

What happened

Merkén belongs to the Mapuche, who have made it, in their own phrase, since time immemorial. It is worth saying where it comes from plainly: La Araucanía remained effectively independent through the whole Spanish colonial era, after a long Mapuche resistance to conquest, and was occupied by Chile's army and settlers in a series of campaigns from the 1850s through 1883. The condiment survived all of that on family farms and has only recently left them — professional chefs took it up in the twenty-first century, and a feasibility study for a Chilean denomination of origin for Mapuche merkén ran in 2014 and 2015 through the Universidad Católica de Temuco.

On the shelf with it

Every product it goes into.

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