Category Archives: Recipes

Comida Criolla-Mains: Lamb Seco

By gino | Published: 2 Feb
The most ironic Peruvian main course. Seco literally means ‘dry’, which this coriander-based stew is anything but. A classic throughout the northern coast (all the way to Ecuador), where the colour of this dish changes from town to town even if the ingredients don’t. Asking for a plate of seco always demands a second question: seco of what? Well, chances are you’ll be faced with a plethora of variants including duck, lamb, chicken, suckling pig and kid (as in baby goat… we might eat guinea pig but children are a definite no-no).
It is said that this recipe derives from the Sent Sovi book (a legendary XIV century Catalan compilation of recipes from middle age Europe), where it was referred to as a ‘Jinete de cabrito’. You can certainly taste the Arabic and Spanish influence in the mix of coriander and red peppers.
A self-respecting seco is always in good company – rice if you’re feeling modest; rice and beans for the classic combo; rice, beans AND potatoes/yuca if you want to go all the way. Later in the week we’ll show you how to cook one of these variants, the recipe demands you open a beer while cooking – and guess what, you won’t need the entire bottle for the stew.

For four generous servings, you’ll need:

  • 1 red pepper
  • 1 medium red onion
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • Green peas
  • 2 small carrots
  • Good bunch of fresh coriander (100g or so)
  • Half leg of lamb
  • Half pint of lager
  • Yellow chilli

And here’s the slightly long, but ultimately satisfying, procedure:
1. Lightly fry the chopped onion and garlic cloves in a hot saucepan.
2. Seal the lamb on that bed of fried onion and garlic until it turns brown on all four sides.
3. Add boiling water and salt to the lamb so that it covers it. Chop carrots in circles and add them to the mix. Let it cook for about half hour.
4. Cut the red pepper in stripes and roast it in a hot pan (avoid using oil, if you can).
5. Use a food processor or blender to mix the red pepper with a good bunch of coriander leaves.
6. The water on the saucepan should have evaporated a bit by now, if it hasn’t, remove a bit (not completely, though, you don’t want to lose the garlic and onion flavour).
7. Add the coriander and red pepper mix to the saucepan where the lamb has been cooking. Make sure the flavours mix and, depending on how hot you want it, add the yellow chilli (if you don’t have yellow chilli the stew will probably be more bitter than usual, but it should still taste good!).
8. Put some green peas (frozen, unfrozen, doesn’t matter) directly on the stew and add salt. This is extremely important if the flavours haven’t mixed well yet, as the salt will act as a true diplomat.
9. As with any good stew, let it simmer for an hour or so, adding lager if it becomes too dry. The consistency is all up to you, some people like their stews dry, some don’t.
10. Congratulate yourself on getting to step 10 and serve hot accompanied by white rice.

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Comida Criolla-Mains: Aji de Gallina

By gino | Published: 2 Feb
Bit of a translation problem with this one. Aji de Gallina literally means ‘Chilli of Hen’ (it also sounds odd in Spanish), which could be translated as ‘Hen Chilli’ if most modern versions didn’t use chicken instead of hen. So, for the sake of clarity, let’s call it ‘Aji Chicken’. No prizes for guessing what the two main ingredients are.
One of the most popular Peruvian main courses, Aji Chicken is said to derive from a dish made in monasteries and convents. Which makes sense because boiling and shredding the chicken is a labour of divine patience. There is another version that traces it as a distant cousin of blancmange, a rather puzzling theory considering Aji Chicken is certainly not a dessert. Whatever its origins, the shredded chicken is mixed with chilli, milk and almonds (rare to Peru and often substituted with local nuts) to create a delicious stew that certainly doesn’t require much patience to eat.
As with any Peruvian staple, there can be variations from household to household. Some prefer it cold, others garnish it with potatoes and without rice, etc. Check back tomorrow for our very own version of this classic dish.

Some say Aji de Gallina is a dish best served cold. Others simply cannot wait and decide to dig in as soon as it’s ready. Preparing the dish itself requires a lot of patience, so unless you enjoy torture, it’s wise to eat it warm. For four servings, you will need:

  • 2 large chicken breasts
  • 1 medium white onion
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • 1/2 pint semi-skimmed milk
  • Vegetable oil
  • Couple of white bread slices (no matter how hard, you can even use yesterday’s bread)
  • Yellow chilli (which, as ever, you can find here, here and here)
  • Almonds

Garnish with:

  • Parmesan cheese
  • 2 boiled eggs
  • White rice
  • 4 boiled potatoes
  • 4 black olives
  • Fresh Parsley

1. Start by boiling the chicken with a bit of salt, keep the stock, we’ll be using it later. In the meantime, soak the bread in a bowl of milk.
2. Once it’s cool, shred the chicken into thin strips and keep your eyes distracted, this bit is going to take a while.
3. Bored? Ok, grab a saucepan and fry the onion and garlic in hot oil.
4. Add the milk+bread and a bit of chicken stock. What we want to achieve is a creamy sauce for the chicken, so balance the milk+bread with the stock to get the right consistency. Turn the heat down a bit.
5. 8 Minutes later, add the shredded chicken and crushed almonds. Again, the quantities should depend on how creamy it gets.
6. Let the flavours mix for 5-10 minutes and voila!
7. Garnish with peeled boiled potatoes, white rice, boiled eggs cut in fours and a black olive per dish.

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Comida Criolla-Mains: Lomo Saltado

By gino | Published: 2 Feb
Yet another classic Peruvian dish with disputed origins. This time, it’s a Far East showdown.
It is widely believed that the mixture of beef strips, onions and soy sauce sauteed in a large pan (or wok) is one of the many contributions Chinese immigration brought to Peru, but the also significant Japanese colony would beg to differ. They argue that it was born in their ‘Fonda’ – a type of small neighborhood restaurant that serves old-school creole dishes, popular in the early 20th century but sadly scarce these days.
The difference between Japanese and Chinese fondas wasn’t big, after all, their main appeal was the small price of their dishes, something which made Lomo Saltado popular with the lower classes. It was only after the 1940′s when this main dish started to appear in cook books, gaining acceptance in more established restaurants and middle class households.
Even if its origins are slightly obscure, we do know for certain that the addition of potato chips, chilli and rice (we love our carbs, don’t we?) is entirely Peruvian. Nowadays, all kinds of restaurants, from Chinese to Novo-Andean, offer many variations of Lomo Saltado (there’s even a couple entirely devoted to it!) making it a perfect example of the collaboration between distant cultures so often found in our cuisine.

Lomo Saltado is essentially a stir-fry, and as with any good stir-fry, the higher the flame the tastier the flavour. That is not to say it can’t be done in an electric hob with a common frying pan, but the results are much better if you use a gas stove and a large iron wok. Either way, turn the heat up!
For approximately 4 servings, you’ll need:

  • 1 kg (2.2 lb) of Sirloin Steak cut into strips
  • Vegetable oil
  • White vinegar
  • 4 red tomatoes cut into eight pieces (each)
  • 3 medium-sized red onions cut into slices
  • Soy sauce
  • Worcestershire sauce
  • *optional: Yellow Chilli cut in strips or drops of yellow chilli sauce (which you can find here, here and here)

1. Heat the oil. Make sure it’s dangerously hot. Add the steak cut into strips. If you are using pure yellow chilli, cut it into strips and cook it with the steak. Take it out of the pan/wok and put it aside once it’s cooked.
2. Now repeat the operation with the red onions, you don’t have to add too much oil. It should cook fairly quickly if your pan/wok is hot enough, once its done, put it to one side.
3. Do the same thing with the tomatoes for a little while. Add the steak and the onions.
4. Now you can add a dash of vinegar and soy sauce as well as a couple of Worcestershire sauce drops. If you have chilli sauce, now is a good time to add it to the mix.
5. Sautee your Lomo Saltado, but don’t let it burn! Once all the flavours have mixed, serve hot.
6. Sprinkle parsley on the Lomo. Garnish with boiled white rice and potato chips. Some people like to mix the chips with the other ingredients, some like to eat them separately. Up to you.
That’s about it. Easy, quick and tasty. Plus, there’s so much heat involved in the procedure you might even get a kitchen tan!

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Comida Criolla- Mains: Prawn Chupe

By gino | Published: 2 Feb
Chupe (a rich, dense soup) is one of the oldest staples of Peruvian cuisine. In fact, its origins date to before the peak of the Inca empire, to the era of Pre-Columbian civilizations. There is historical proof that shrimp was one of the favourite meals back in 1000 b.c. as straw baskets and nets from that time can attest. So, is Prawn Chupe one of our oldest, most classic dishes?
Well… yes and no. The ‘Chupe de Camarones’ we know and love today is yet another product of cultural exchange between South America and Europe. We call it ‘chupe’ because that’s how we refer to dense soups, but the dish owes as much to our Pre-Columbian past as to French cuisine, in particular to bisqué. French immigration to Peru started in the early 1700′s, but it didn’t become numerous until the mid-19th century, when a significant amount of artisans and luxury dealers moved to Lima, bringing with them several customs and words that quickly influenced Peruvian society. One of them was adding milk to soup, apparently!
A specialty of the city of Arequipa, Prawn Chupe today is eaten as a main dish and it’s one of the most potent, rich and delicious soups around. It’s got chili, rice, shrimps, milk, cheese, peas, potatoes (!), corn… we better stop there, just wait for our recipe tomorrow and try it yourself. If you can find a big enough plate, that is.

There are few Peruvian dishes as sophisticated and spectacular as ‘chupe de camarones’, but don’t let that put you off trying to cook it. It might daunting at first, but the procedure is actually very simple. For two generous servings, you will need…

  • 400g of the biggest uncooked prawns you can find
  • 4 medium sized potatoes
  • 2 poached eggs
  • 1 garlic clove
  • Tomato purée
  • 1 medium sized red onion
  • 1 corn cob
  • 1/2 pint semi-skimmed milk
  • Plenty of water
  • Green peas
  • 1/4 cup white rice
  • Vegetable oil
  • Oregano
  • Paprika
  • Parsley

1. Pick a good soup casserole and let’s start by creating a ‘sofrito’. This is just lightly fried garlic, onion (finely chopped) and a bit of tomato purée in vegetable oil.
2. Peel the potatoes and cut them in 4 equal pieces, add them to the sofrito alongside a handful of green peas and the corn cob (also split into 3 or 4 chunks, depending on how big your casserole is). Add plenty of water or fish/vegetable stock to make sure the potatoes are covered. Leave it cooking for at least 7 minutes on medium heat.
3. Once the potatoes have boiled, add the prawns – preferably shell-less, although you can add a couple with shell just to make it look fancier (bearing in mind eating them will look anything but fancy). Reduce the heat to medium-low and let it simmer.
4. Add rice, leave it for at least 10 minutes to boil in the soup, stirring occasionally.
5. Stir-in the milk and sprinkle some oregano and paprika. Keep the soup simmering. Poach a couple of eggs on a different pot. Add them to the soup right before serving.
6. Serve hot, with some parsley on top.

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Comida Criolla-Starters: Papa Rellena

By gino | Published: 2 Feb

“There is nothing in the world more Peruvian than potato… base and foundation of Peruvianess, even before the days of the Inca Empire”

- Adán Felipe Mejía

Approximately 7,000 years ago, somewhere in the Andes, the now famous spud made its debut to what surely was an enthusiastic audience of pre-Incan gourmets. Incas too loved their potatoes, why else would they have invented more than 1,000 words to describe them in the Quechua language if they didn’t?
The Spanish Conquistadors certainly loved them too, taking a whole bunch to the Old World (arguably a much more valuable import than their bars of gold and silver). Not long after, Potatomania spread all over Europe, as legendary French potato-fancier Antoine-Augustin Parmentier campaigned for its consumption with the help of King Louis XVI. Monsieur Parmentier was a PR genius, giving potato bouquets to the royal family and paying armed guards to surround his potato patch at Sablons, so crowds would think it was valuable goods. It was through these Machiavellian schemes that he managed to lure famous world leaders to his Potatofeasts. One of these guests happened to be Benjamin Franklin, who would later introduce potatoes to North America and become famous for inventing french fries (this last fact may or may not be entirely true).
What it is definitely true is that, after all those wild tours around the world, the spud’s popularity remains intact in its native land. Out of the known 5,000 species of potato, 3,000 are found in Peru. Never mind the plethora of recipes! Papa Rellena could be seen as our own version of the English jacket potato, except that instead of simply filling the potato, it is mashed, reconstructed to its original shape, and deep fried. It’s versatility and simple handling made it a popular dish to eat on-the-go, a hit in small town corners and inter-provincial buses. Watch this space for our own version of Papa Rellena, coming soon to your favourite pan.

For the potato:

  • 1kg potatoes
  • 250g minced beef
  • 2 boiled eggs
  • 1 egg
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • 1 small red onion
  • Bunch of raisins
  • Flour
  • Cumin

For the garnish (salsa criolla):

  • 2 medium-sized red onions
  • Lemon
  • Parsley
  • Vegetable oil
  • Yellow chilli (found here, here and here)

1. This is all about the potatoes, so let’s start by boiling them, peeling them while they’re hot and pressing them (before they cool down), creating a sort of dough.
2. Chop the onion and garlic – gently fry them in a large pan with oil. At the same time, boil a couple of eggs on another hob.
3. Now add the minced beef. Once it’s cooked to your liking, add some raisins.
4. After peeling them, cut the boiled eggs in slices.
5. Back to the potato dough. What we want now is to create a sort of capsule for the beef stuffing and the egg slice. Take a look at this clip from 3.45 onwards:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg__cjfZPLs&t=3m45s]
6. Once you have your faux-potatoes, roll them on a bed of flour and a pool of raw egg (that doesn’t sound as fancy, does it?).
7. Deep fry them using hot hot hot oil.
8. That’s about it for the potato. Now for the garnish, cut the red onions in thin slices and put them in a bowl. Add salt, pepper, chilli, lemon, chopped parsley and presto! You have a typical Peruvian ‘creole sauce’ (although it looks more like a salad).

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