Mød Isidora Diaz - underviser i Meyers Madhus

I started cooking when I was 10 years old in my hometown Arauco, first baking a simple yellow cake every Wednesday afternoon, as a sort of a weekly ritual. Recipe was my grandma's, and of course now I know it by heart and make it a couple of times a year. It's the best cake! Also around that time I started helping my dad on the grill. Nearly every weekend we would grill big cuts of meat, pork ribs, smoked longaniza sausage, etc., either for a small family gathering or for a lot of guests. Big, happy, noisy tables full of people, eating grilled meats and sides as fresh tomato pebre salsa, boiled potatoes and roasted onions, with lots of good Chilean wine are a big part of my child memories.

My mom owned a very popular and successful sandwich restaurant, during my whole childhood; I was often there but of course I was too little to do anything else than folding napkins. Still, I have memories of huge pots with meats boiling, plates with mashed avocado and homemade mayo, everything ready to be piled up in gorgeous, colorful sandwiches. Every now and then I make them, following my mom's rules and directions and it is the BEST thing ever. Sandwiches are very popular in Chile: they are huge, nutritious and full of fresh veggies, mayo and meats.
So, I guess my passion for cooking comes from all sides: Granma Techy inspiration, my mom's food business side and my dad's passion for grilling and big cooking projects as paella. Everybody cooks in my family; my two older brothers also have their own specialties, and when we all get together, it is indeed a feast.

I’m an autodidact chef. I studied philosophy and then I worked as a food and wine journalist in Chile. During that whole time, because of my own interest, I did a lot of research about traditional Chilean food, of the kind you only find in small towns or in the countryside. I learned cooking Chilean food by trying a lot of old recipes, by getting my hands on big classics that nobody cooks at home anymore because they are labor intensive and so widely sold in markets, like empanadas and humitas (similar to a tamale).
Since I left Chile in 2013, it's been a journey of developing my own recipes so they work with the ingredients I could find in the US where I lived from 2013 to last year and now in Denmark. During my time in the US, in Columbus Ohio, I started cooking intensively as a cooking class instructor, as a catering chef and doing my own pop-up dinners about Chilean and South American food. During this time, I worked with 2 friends from Chile and we did a Chilean inspired, creative grilling cookbook called "Todo a la Parrilla" that was published in 2016 in Chile. First edition is sold out and now waiting for the second one.
I have a deep passion for Chilean food and there is nothing I love more than to cook it (or grill it!) and to share it with people. It is tasty, vibrant, easy to make and has lots of options to use ingredients that are popular in Denmark, as potatoes, pork, strawberries and breads.

Hvis du vil lære at lave autentisk, chilensk mad, kan du læse mere om kurserne her:

Isidoras sydamerikanske køkken her.

Mexican Street Food her.