In Chile, May 24th can only mean one thing: it’s Dia de Completo, or Completo Day!
What is a completo? It’s Chile’s favorite kind of dog - hot dog, that is.
Just as with cities like Chicago and New York, which have their own quintessential versions of hotdogs in the “Chicago Dog” or the “New York hotdog”, the completo is Chile’s classic fast food ‘dog, although they’re a little more lenient with swapping out toppings.
Popular as a street food and for meals, the completo - which literally translate to “the complete” - is an iconic part of Chilean cuisine, bringing together three of Chileans’ favorite things: fresh veggies and avocado, a hearty red meat sausage, and a giant, toasted bun, usually made from Chilean marraqueta bread.
There are many different kinds of completos, but the “Completo Italiano” is the most common and popular, so called because its main ingredients - mashed avocado, diced tomatoes, and a squirt of mayonnaise - are the same colors as the Italian flag.
Other versions of completos include the standard completo, which comes with avocado, tomatoes, and sauerkraut; the dinamico, decked out with avocado, tomatoes, mayonnaise, and sauerkraut; the “as”, which swaps out grilled meat and with all the fixings of a completo italiano; and finally, the carb-o-licious combo of “a la pobre”, which has fried onions, french fries, and a fried egg on top of the sausage.
To celebrate Completo Day, here’s the recipe for the classic Completo Italiano. Happy eating!
You’ll Need:
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Hot dogs
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Buns or rounded loaves that you can split open
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Avocados
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Tomatoes
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Mayonnaise
What to Do:
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Cut open and gut the avocados.
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Mash the contents together
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Wash and dice the tomatoes
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Cook or grill hot dogs until done
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Toast the buns
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First, add the hot dog to the toasted bun. Then pile on tomato, followed by a swab of avocado, and then top it with a drizzle of mayonnaise. Feel free to add other condiments such as ketchup
- Enjoy!
To learn more about Chile's cuisine, check out our favorite Food & Wine tours!
