Peruvian cuisine

Choosing a favorite dish could be difficult as there are so many good dishes to choose from, but for me I would have to choose Aji de Gallina, I really enjoy the taste and spiciness and it was the first Peruvian dish my wife ever made for me, so I may be a bit biased on this one.

Considering I live in the Andes, for a typical dish I would have to choose Cuy (Guinea Pig), this dish dates back to before the Spanish arrived and brought all the other protein. Here is a bit of info that many people don’t know, Cuy is actually higher in protein and lower in fat than chicken. While you can get Cuy prepared many ways like stewed, fried or roasted, my favorite is oven baked.

I will add one more typical dish as the town I live in is famous for its lechon, lechon is a small (10 kg or less) pig that has been slow roasted in an adobe oven for 4 to 6 hours. If you happen to be in the Cusco region on November 1st I would recommend visiting Huarocondo and checking out the annual lechon festival.

Here is a recipe that I enjoy making, while I leave the Aji de Gallina for my wife to make, Asado de Res is a dish that I typically do.

Asado de Res or Peruvian Roast Beef

Ingredients:
•    Vegetable oil for cooking
•    Salt, pepper
•    a 2lb (1kg) roast- whatever cut is your favorite
•    1  cup chopped leeks (you can use celery)
•    2-3 medium size carrots cut in 1″ chunks
•    1 large onion, in julienned slices
•    4 garlic cloves
•    1 cup of finely chopped tomato (peeled and seeded)*
•    1 bay leaf
•    1 cup mushrooms, cleaned and coarsely chopped
•    4 tablespoons aji panca paste
•    1 cup red wine
•    1 cup beef stock or broth
Directions:
1.    Heat vegetable oil in a large Dutch oven to medium high heat. Salt and pepper the roast well, and then sear it in the oil on all sides. Remove and hold aside. Reduce the heat to medium.
2.    In the same pot, add the leeks, carrot, onion, garlic, tomato, bay leaf and mushrooms. Sauté together for about 10 minutes, until the onions start to caramelize and the mushrooms are soft.
3.    Add the aji panca and stir together for another couple of minutes.
4.    Pour in the wine and the beef stock and mix well.
5.    Put the roast back in the pan.
6.    Cover the pot tightly, and cook in 300 degree F oven until the meat reaches an interior temperature of 135 degrees, then remove from the oven and let it “rest” for about 5-10 minutes. It will continue cooking during this time – rising another 5 degrees or so in temperature.  This will give you a medium-rare roast.  For medium, remove from the oven when the temperature hits 150 degrees.

You can separate the juice from the seasonings with a colander. Serve as is, or cook it with a little bit of roux to thicken it up into a gravy.
Serve with Potato’s and/or rice.

mongo466 wrote:

I would have to choose Aji de Gallina, I really enjoy the taste and spiciness and it was the first Peruvian dish my wife ever made for me, so I may be a bit biased on this one.

Here is a recipe that I enjoy making, while I leave the Aji de Gallina for my wife to make...

•    4 tablespoons aji panca paste

3.    Add the aji panca and stir together for another couple of minutes.

Kudos to Mongo for taking this subject head-on and sharing his expertise.

The reliance on ají, or hot peppers/onions/tomato sauce, in Peruvian cuisine indicates that this is a more picante (hot to the taste) cuisine than North Americans are used to eating.

When I visited La Chispa Peruana (The Peruvian Spark) restaurant in Quito yesterday, I read about the ají reliance in the menu notes and had a flashback to my days in Northern Thailand, where the standard restaurant fare included dishes so spiced with hot red peppers that I couldn't eat them.  I quickly learned to special-order low spicing.

Back at La Chispa, La Señora Dueña was only too happy to accommodate my request for a reduction in the level of lo picante.

The ceviche with onions that I ordered was quite palatable while still zingy and delicious.  It's possible that hot pepper sauce is not usually an ingredient in that dish, anyway.

cccmedia in Quito, Ecuador

Here are a couple of other notes about Peruvian cuisine, which I translated from La Chispa's menu....

Peruvian cuisine is considered one of the world's most varied and delicious cuisines.

Thanks to the heritage of the pre-Incans, the Incans and the immigration of the Spanish, Africans, Canton-Chinese, Japanese and Italians, a gastronomy of exquisite flavors from four continents have been mixed together.

cccmedia in Quito

Due to encouragement along these lines from Bhavna at the Home Office in the Mascarene Islands, I am re-visiting my notes from the Chispa Peruana field trip to glean whatever is knowable about the cuisine of Peru.

The menu was big on meat and seafood parilladas -- grilled dishes, that is -- as well as pasta with meat or seafood.  It also offers a steak filet.

The chef's special the day I visited was Oriental fish.

The menu claims that a dish known as leche de tigre -- tiger milk -- is an aphrodisiac and hangover cure.  It's another ceviche but with pulpo, which is octopus, as a key ingredient.

If you thought ají came in one flavor only, the Chispa menu will set you straight...

"La cocina peruana...es atractiva por su colorido y a veces por su matíz picante, por su gran variedad de ajíés...."

Translation:  Peruvian cuisine is attractive for being colorful and at times for its spicy hotness for its great variety of ají sauces.

cccmedia in Ecuador