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32 recipes

Ul boovNew Year shoe-sole pastries

Ul boov, "shoe-sole pastries", are the centrepiece of the Tsagaan Sar (Lunar New Year) table in every Mongolian home, stacked in an odd number of layers on a platter and crowned with aaruul, sugar cubes and sweets. Each oblong pastry is pressed with a carved wooden stamp and fried or baked. Families traditionally use rendered sheep's tail fat in the dough; this version uses butter. The stack is admired for the holiday, then broken up and eaten with milk tea. A common mistake is a soft dough that loses the stamped pattern; it should be firm and smooth. Chef's tip: if you don't have a stamp, press patterns with a fork or the end of a spoon.

120 min

Mongolian Baking

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Pisco sour

Lima drinks its pisco sour as the aperitif before a long ceviche lunch, and celebrates it every year on the first Saturday of February; the recipe took shape in the city's bars in the 1920s. It is for adults only and stronger than its pillowy look suggests. Underneath a thick white foam you get sharp Peruvian lime, a clean sweetness and the floral, grapey warmth of quebranta pisco, with the bitters adding a spicy smell to every sip. The texture should be silky, almost creamy, never thin. The classic mistake is squeezing the limes too hard or too early: the oil from the pith turns the drink bitter within half an hour. Halve the limes, press each half gently by hand just before mixing and stop when the juice slows. The egg white is raw, so use pasteurised egg white for anyone pregnant, for babies, older people or anyone unwell, or swap in 30 ml aquafaba. It is ready when the foam stands about 1 cm high and is firm enough to hold the drops of bitters on its surface. Sip one slowly and drink responsibly. Chef's tip: shake once without ice first to whip the egg white, then again with ice; the foam will be twice as thick.

5 min

Peruvian Drinks

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Chilcano de piscoPisco and ginger ale highball

When Lima's grey winter finally lifts and summer reaches the beaches south of the city, the chilcano takes over from the pisco sour: lighter, longer and made for an afternoon. Peru even gives it a Semana del Chilcano each January, and it is poured at weekend lunches with chifa or fried fish. This is a highball for adults only: pisco poured over a tall glass of ice with fresh lime and ginger ale, finished with a few drops of bitters. It should taste crisp and fizzy, with the ginger and lime lifting the floral grape notes of the pisco rather than hiding them. The common mistake is using too little ice and warm ginger ale, which gives a sweet, diluted drink that goes flat in minutes. Fill the glass to the top with ice and keep the ginger ale in the fridge until the last second. It is ready when the glass is frosty, the bubbles race up the sides and the bitters drift through the top as a pink haze. Light it may be, but drink responsibly. Chef's tip: try a fruit-infused pisco, made by steeping passion fruit or mandarin peel in the bottle for a few days; Limeños love a chilcano de maracuyá.

10 min

Peruvian Drinks

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Jugo de macaWarm maca drink

Before dawn at markets in Huancayo, Cusco and Lima, juice ladies ladle hot jugo de maca from big pots for workers on their way in: maca root, a turnip relative grown above 4,000 metres in the Junín highlands, simmered with milk, cinnamon and cloves and sweetened with honey or sugar. It tastes malty and toasty, a bit like butterscotch. The common mistake is stirring the powder straight into hot milk, which leaves gritty lumps; whisk it into a little cold milk first. Maca is not usually advised in pregnancy, so ask your doctor first if you are pregnant. Chef's tip: use gelatinised (cooked) maca powder if you can find it; it dissolves smoothly and is gentler on the stomach.

10 min

Peruvian Drinks

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Jugo surtidoMixed fruit juice

Step up to any juguería in Lima's Mercado de Surquillo or a barrio market at breakfast time and order a surtido: the juicer drops papaya, banana, pineapple and freshly squeezed orange into a tall blender, sometimes a slice of cooked beetroot for colour or a splash of milk, and pours you a big glass with the rest left in the jug for your 'yapa', the free refill. It is thick but still pourable, sweet from ripe fruit with a sharp orange edge, the kind of drink that stands in for breakfast before a long day. The common mistake is adding lots of ice and water, which makes it thin and frothy rather than velvety. Use cold fruit and freshly squeezed orange juice as the liquid. It is ready when it coats the glass and no lumps of banana are left. This version is fruit only; stalls also make it with milk if you prefer. Drink it straight away: papaya and banana go brown and bitter within half an hour. Chef's tip: use very ripe papaya with orange flesh; under-ripe papaya tastes of nothing and gives a faintly bitter aftertaste.

10 min

Peruvian Drinks

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Mate de muñaAndean mint tea

Muña is the minty shrub that grows wild on the slopes around Cusco, Puno and the Sacred Valley, and highland cooks reach for it after a heavy meal of chicharrón or when visitors are struggling with the altitude. Market herb sellers sell it in fresh bunches, and hotels and homes leave it in a flask for anyone coming in from the cold evenings. Steeped simply in hot water, it smells somewhere between spearmint, oregano and pennyroyal, with a cooling, slightly peppery taste and a pale green-gold colour. It is traditionally drunk to settle the stomach. The usual mistake is boiling the leaves hard for a long time, which turns the tea brown and bitter. Pour water just off the boil over the sprigs, cover, and let it steep. It is ready when the cup is pale gold and the aroma rises as soon as you lift the lid. Outside Peru, look for dried muña in Latin shops; failing that, use mostly spearmint with a little fresh oregano. Muña is strong: avoid large amounts in pregnancy, and check with a doctor if you take regular medication. Chef's tip: cover the cup while it steeps so the scented oils stay in the tea.

8 min

Peruvian Drinks

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Refresco de coconaCocona cooler

In Iquitos, Pucallpa and the river towns of Loreto, heat and humidity make a cold refresco part of every lunch, and cocona is one of the favourites sold from plastic jugs at the Belén market. The fruit looks like a fuzzy orange tomato and tastes between tomato, lemon and apricot: very sour, aromatic and juicy. Blended with water and sugar it makes a tangy, golden drink with a light pulp, served with juane or tacacho con cecina. The usual mistake is skipping the fuzz: cocona skin is covered in fine hairs that make the drink scratchy, so rub them off under running water before you start. Blend only briefly, too, so the many seeds do not crack. It is ready when the refresco is opaque orange, sour first and sweet after, with no grit. Outside the Amazon, look for frozen cocona pulp in Latin American shops; naranjilla (lulo) pulp is the closest substitute. Chef's tip: a pinch of salt makes the fruit taste sweeter and fruitier without more sugar.

10 min

Peruvian Drinks

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BusecaTripe and white bean stew

Buseca arrived in Montevideo with Italian immigrants from Lombardy and became a classic winter dish of Uruguayan bodegones and family kitchens, eaten on cold June and July days. Honeycomb tripe is simmered until tender, then stewed with white beans, pork chorizo, bacon, peppers, tomato and paprika into a thick, warming stew served with crusty bread. Buy tripe that is already cleaned and blanched (dressed). The usual mistake is undercooking the tripe: it needs a full 2 hours, until it's soft enough to cut with a spoon. Slow-cooker option: after step 4, cook on low for 8 hours. Chef's tip: a little grated lemon zest and parsley stirred in at the end lifts the rich, gelatinous sauce.

185 min

Paraguayan Meat

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Cocido quemadoBurnt sugar mate drink

Cocido is how Paraguay starts the day: in Asunción, in the villages of Guairá and Itapúa, and in school kitchens, a pot of burnt yerba is brewed and poured into cups with chipa, the cheesy cassava bread, or with a hard galleta. The old way is to drop a glowing piece of charcoal into a pot with yerba and sugar and stir until the sugar burns. On a home stove you caramelise them together in a dry pan instead, which is safer and gives the same smoky, toffee-like taste. The drink is clear amber-brown, with roasted, slightly bitter mate notes over burnt-sugar sweetness; with milk added it becomes cocido con leche, creamy and coffee-coloured. Yerba mate contains caffeine, so treat it like a cup of coffee. The common mistake is letting the sugar go black: it turns acrid and bitter. Pull it off the heat when the caramel is deep amber and the yerba smells toasted, not burnt. It is ready when the liquid is a clear dark amber and tastes of toffee and smoke. Chef's tip: the water will spit fiercely when it hits the hot caramel, so pour it in from the side, at arm's length.

14 min

Paraguayan Drinks

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Morcilla dulceSweet blood sausage with walnuts

No Uruguayan parrilla is complete without morcilla dulce: a soft pork blood sausage sweetened with sugar and scented with orange peel, studded with walnuts and raisins, grilled until the skin crisps and served first, as part of the achuras, while the beef is still cooking. It is pork throughout: pork blood, pork back fat and natural pork casings. Making it at home is a project. Buy fresh pork blood with an anticoagulant added from a butcher who supplies it for sausage making, keep it chilled below 4 °C and use it within a day. The common mistake is poaching at a rolling boil, which bursts the casings. Chef's tip: keep the water at 80–85 °C, just shivering, and prick a sausage after 25 minutes: it is done when brown, not red, juice comes out.

120 min

Paraguayan Meat

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Postre MassiniCustard sponge with burnt sugar top

Montevideo's birthday cake of choice since the early twentieth century, the Massini is two thin layers of sponge sandwiching a thick filling of whipped cream folded with egg-yolk custard, crowned with a thin glassy crust of torched yolk and sugar. Bakeries across Uruguay sell it on Sundays. Traditional versions sometimes add a sweet fortified wine to the custard; this one is alcohol-free. The custard is cooked to a safe 71 °C. The common mistake is assembling with warm custard, which melts the cream into a puddle. Chef's tip: if you don't have a blowtorch, put the sugared top under a very hot grill for a minute and watch it closely.

80 min

Paraguayan Baking

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TereréIced yerba mate

In Asunción the hottest part of the day stops for tereré: a horn or cup packed with yerba mate, topped up again and again with ice water infused with crushed herbs, and passed round the group through a metal straw. It was recognised by UNESCO as part of Paraguay's cultural heritage, and the herbs (yuyos) change with the season and the drinker's mood. Yerba mate contains caffeine, so it isn't one for small children. The common mistake is pouring water straight into loose yerba, which then clogs the straw; tilt the yerba to one side first. Chef's tip: for tereré ruso, swap the water for cold orange or grapefruit juice.

10 min

Paraguayan Drinks

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Boiled mutton

Chanasan makh is the simplest and most loved meal of the Mongolian countryside, boiled in a big pot on the ger stove in Övörkhangai or Khentii whenever guests arrive or a holiday comes round. Large bone-in pieces of mutton are simmered with nothing but salt and a little onion, then served steaming on a platter to be cut with a knife and eaten by hand, with the rich broth drunk from bowls alongside. Potato, carrot and turnip are often cooked in the same pot. A common mistake is boiling hard, which makes the meat tough and the broth cloudy; keep it at a lazy simmer and skim. Chef's tip: mutton or older lamb with some fat on it gives the deepest flavour.

135 min

Mongolian Meat

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Mongolian salty milk tea

Süütei tsai is the first thing offered to anyone who steps into a ger on the Mongolian steppe, from Arkhangai to the Gobi, and families drink it all day long from wide bowls. Green brick tea is boiled in water, then milk and a pinch of salt go in, and the tea is ladled high and poured back again and again to aerate it. Some households add a knob of butter or a spoon of toasted millet for a richer, more filling bowl. It is savoury, not sweet, which surprises first-time visitors. A common mistake is using black tea leaves, which go bitter; use green brick tea or a mild green tea. Chef's tip: the ladling is not just ritual, it gives the tea a smooth, rounded taste.

15 min

Mongolian Drinks

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Uuts-style roast lamb saddle

Uuts, the whole back and fat tail of a sheep, is the grandest dish of Tsagaan Sar, the Mongolian Lunar New Year: boiled, then set in the centre of the table in every Ulaanbaatar and countryside home and carved for each visitor during the days of family visits. The real thing weighs many kilos and needs a huge pot, so this home version uses a bone-in saddle of lamb with its fat, simmered first and then roasted until the fat is crisp, keeping the uuts idea of a whole, impressive cut to carve at the table. A common mistake is trimming away all the fat; in Mongolia it is the most prized part. Chef's tip: score the fat in a criss-cross so it renders and crisps evenly.

170 min

Mongolian Meat

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BortsAir-dried beef strips

Borts is the winter-dried meat of Mongolian herding families: in the cold, dry air of late autumn, strips of beef are hung inside the ger until they shrink to hard, dark sticks, then pounded and stored in a bag to last until spring. A handful of borts dropped into hot water makes an instant soup, and nomads carry it on long journeys. In Mongolia it is also made from horse or camel meat; this recipe uses beef. Home kitchens don't have the steppe's freezing dry air, so here the meat is heated to a safe temperature first and dried in a low oven. A common mistake is leaving fat on the strips; fat turns rancid, so trim it all. Chef's tip: slice the meat while half-frozen to get thin, even strips.

450 min

Mongolian Meat

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ChampúsMote corn and pineapple drink

When Lima's grey winter sets in, from June to September, champús sellers set up on street corners with big pots of this thick, fruity drink, ladled warm into glasses and eaten as much as drunk. It's made from mote (hulled white corn), simmered with pineapple, quince or apple, soursop, chancaca and warm spices, then thickened lightly with corn flour, so every spoonful has soft fruit and chewy corn in a spiced, molasses-sweet base. It is close in spirit to mazamorra morada but paler and tangier. The mistake people make is adding the thickener straight into the hot pot, where it forms lumps; always slake it in cold water first and pour it in while stirring. Canned or jarred hominy saves hours; frozen soursop (guanábana) pulp is in Latin shops and can be left out. Serve warm in glasses with spoons. Chef's tip: simmer the pineapple peel and core with the spices for the first 20 minutes, then strain them out; they give much of the flavour.

80 min

Peruvian Drinks

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Seco de chabeloPlantain mash with dried beef

Piura's picanterías, near the dry northern border, serve this rough, savoury mash at lunch: green plantains, roasted or boiled and pounded, mixed with fried strips of carne seca (salted dried beef) and a quick sofrito of onion, tomato and ají amarillo. It is dense, salty and smoky, with the plantain's starchy sweetness, and is eaten with salsa criolla and fried ripe plantain or chifles (plantain crisps). The legend says it was invented for a soldier called Chabelo in the War of the Pacific. Use carne seca or cecina from Latin shops, or unseasoned beef jerky. Pounding the plantains smooth is the classic mistake: chabelo should be lumpy and rustic. Chef's tip: soak the dried beef in warm water for 30 minutes and taste a piece; if it's still very salty, change the water and soak again.

60 min

Peruvian Meat

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AguajinaAguaje palm fruit drink

Aguaje is the scaly, chestnut-red fruit of the moriche palm that grows in the flooded forests around Iquitos, and its orange flesh ends up in ice lollies, ice cream and, above all, aguajina, the cold drink sold in plastic cups at every corner and in Belén market. The taste is unusual and loved locally: tangy, a little like apricot and carrot, with a rich, slightly oily body. Fresh aguaje must be softened in warm water for an hour before its thin layer of pulp can be scraped off; outside Peru, frozen aguaje pulp from Latin American shops is the realistic choice and gives a good result. A common slip is adding all the sugar before tasting: the pulp's sourness varies from pack to pack, so sweeten at the end. Serve very cold with lunch or on a hot afternoon. Chef's tip: blend the pulp with only part of the water first, so it breaks down fully, then stir in the rest.

15 min

Peruvian Drinks

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Turrón de Doña PepaAnise biscuit sticks in spiced syrup

Every October, the month of the Señor de los Milagros processions in Lima, bakeries and street sellers pile their trays with turrón de Doña Pepa: layers of crumbly anise-flavoured sticks drenched in a dark syrup of chancaca cooked with fruit and spices, topped with a storm of coloured sprinkles. Popular lore credits it to Josefa Marmanillo, a woman from the Cañete valley who is said to have made it in thanks after the procession. It is sticky, crunchy and soft at once, with orange and clove in the syrup. Its downfall is usually runny syrup that soaks the sticks into mush; it needs to reach a thick, threading stage before it goes on. Chancaca is sold as cones or blocks in Latin shops; panela or dark muscovado also work. Some coloured sprinkles contain gelatin, so check the label. Chef's tip: make it a day ahead; the syrup sets and the sticks soften just enough to slice neatly.

120 min

Peruvian Baking

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EmolienteBarley and flaxseed herbal drink

Before dawn, all over Peru, emolienteros set up their carts with a row of steaming kettles and jars of herbs, and commuters stop for a glass of emoliente on the way to work. It's a hot infusion of toasted barley, flaxseed and herbs, with lime juice and sugar added to order, and it is drunk for comfort and digestion, especially in Lima's damp winter. The flaxseed gives it a slippery, soothing body; the barley a toasty, almost coffee-like note. Street versions use horsetail, alfalfa, boldo and other herbs; this home version keeps it simple, with horsetail as an option (leave it out if you are pregnant or have kidney problems). The usual error is boiling the flax too long, which makes the drink gloopy; add it for the last 10 minutes only. Serve very hot in glasses, with pan con queso or a sandwich. Barley contains gluten. Chef's tip: toast the barley yourself until it is deep brown; it's what gives emoliente its colour and its roasted flavour.

40 min

Peruvian Drinks

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King kongLayered biscuit with manjar blanco

Named, the story goes, after the giant ape because of its size when the film reached Peru, the king kong is Lambayeque's proudest sweet: thick, crumbly biscuit layers stacked with manjar blanco, a sticky pineapple jam and a peanut fudge, then cut into heavy slabs. Shops in Lambayeque and Chiclayo sell them by the kilo in boxes, and travellers carry them home as gifts. It is very sweet, buttery and dense, so a slice goes a long way with black coffee. This home version makes the manjar blanco from condensed and evaporated milk to save hours, then turns half of it into the peanut layer. The usual mistake is overbaking the biscuit until it is hard; take it out as soon as the edges are pale gold, as it firms up while it cools. It is a project, so make the fillings first and let them cool. Chef's tip: wrap the finished king kong and leave it overnight before cutting; the layers settle and soften into each other.

150 min

Peruvian Baking

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KispiñoSteamed quinoa cakes

Pressed in a fist so each one carries the marks of the cook's fingers, kispiño are small, dense quinoa cakes from the Puno highlands, steamed and then left to dry so they keep for weeks on journeys, herding trips and pilgrimages. Traditional ones are bound with a little lime water (from cal, the mineral) and fat; this home version uses oil and a pinch of aniseed and sugar, so they're vegan and pleasantly savoury-sweet. They're firm and chewy, a little like a grain cake, and good with hot tea, coca tea or a soup on a cold day. The common mistake is making the dough too wet, so the cakes slump in the steamer; it should feel like damp sand that holds its shape when squeezed. Ground quinoa is quinoa flour; grind your own from rinsed, dried and toasted grain, or buy it ready ground. Chef's tip: toast the ground quinoa in a dry pan first until it smells nutty, which takes away any bitterness.

55 min

Peruvian Baking

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Quinua con manzanaQuinoa and apple drink

Morning market stalls and street carts from Lima to Huancayo ladle quinua con manzana into glasses alongside emoliente and maca, and many people drink it as breakfast on its own, with a bread roll or a sandwich beside it. Quinoa and chunks of apple are simmered with cinnamon and cloves until the grains burst and the liquid thickens, then sweetened and served warm or cold. Some stalls blend it smooth; others leave the grains and soft apple pieces to spoon up. It is mild, fruity and filling, and children usually like it. The mistake that ruins it is skipping the rinse: quinoa's natural coating, saponin, makes the drink bitter and soapy, so rub it under running water until the foam stops. Chef's tip: add a few drops of lime at the end; it lifts the apple and keeps the drink from tasting flat.

40 min

Peruvian Drinks

by KrazyBadal 0 views

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