Destination
Santiago
The story
The completo is Chile's national hot dog, and specifically the completo Italiano is Chile's national hot dog. A soft split marraqueta or vienesa bun, a boiled or grilled sausage inside, then a specific building order on top: a thick layer of mashed avocado (palta), a layer of finely diced ripe tomato, and a slick of mayo piled so high it almost spills. Green, red, white: the colours of the Italian flag, hence the name. Wolfed down standing at a counter at Domino, or Dogger, or any of a hundred other schoperías across Santiago.
Method
Mash the avocado in a small bowl with a pinch of salt and a squeeze of lime. Salt the diced tomato in a separate bowl and let it sit 5 minutes; drain any liquid that comes out. The mayo can stay in its jar (Chileans use it straight, no adornment).
Warm the buns briefly in a hot dry pan or a 180°C oven for 2 minutes. Warm bread is non-negotiable: cold buns dull the whole thing.
Warm the sausages by boiling them in gently simmering water for 4 to 5 minutes, or grilling them on a hot dry pan for 3 minutes per side until char lines appear. Both are correct: boiling is more Santiago-street-vendor; grilling is more home cook.
Split each bun. Lay a sausage inside. Cover the sausage completely with a thick layer of mashed avocado (this is the heaviest layer). Add a heap of diced tomato on top of the avocado. Finish with a generous squeeze of mayo running down the length of the sandwich (Chileans use a piping bag or a squeeze bottle for a proper thick line).
Eat immediately, standing up if possible, with plenty of napkins and (traditionally) a cold Coca-Cola or a Fanta on the side.
Tips
- Ripe avocado is essential. Under-ripe avocado gives you a chalky, bland layer; a properly ripe Hass mashed with a pinch of salt is what makes an Italiano taste right. Chilean palta is grown at scale so it's always ripe there; buy accordingly.
- Drain the tomato. Wet tomato makes the bun soggy in about 30 seconds. Finely diced, salted for 5 minutes, drained, then piled on: that's the technique.
- Use good thick mayo. American-style light mayo runs off the completo and disappoints. Chileans use a thick full-fat mayo (Hellmann's works) piped in a fat line down the top.
- Warm bread makes or breaks it. A quick pass under a hot pan or in a warm oven is standard. Never a cold bun.
- Marraqueta is the classic Chilean roll, but a soft hot-dog bun works. If you can find marraqueta (the split, twin-loaf Chilean roll), it's the ideal vehicle. Absent that, any soft split roll works.
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