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23 recipes

Pira caldoCreamy fish soup with cheese

Along the Paraguay River from Asunción to Concepción, pira caldo is the fishermen's soup, said to restore strength after a long night: chunks of firm river fish poached in a broth of onion, peppers and tomato fried in fat, then made creamy with milk and melted fresh cheese. Surubí or other catfish is traditional; any firm white fish such as hake or pollock works. The mistake most people make is boiling the soup after the milk and cheese go in, which splits it. Chef's tip: fry the vegetables until they are very soft and sweet before adding the water; that is where the flavour comes from.

60 min

Paraguayan Soups

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Caldo de gallinaHen broth with noodles

In Lima's markets and the all-night caldo stalls of districts like La Victoria, a bowl of caldo de gallina is the dawn breakfast for market porters, taxi drivers and anyone coming home late: a deep, golden broth from a slow-simmered hen (a boiling fowl) with ginger and spring onion, ladled over thick noodles and yellow potato, with a boiled egg, lime and ají chilli on the side. The common mistake is boiling the broth hard, which clouds it and toughens the meat; keep it to a lazy simmer. The chicken must reach 74 °C, though after this long simmer it will be well past that. Chef's tip: cook the noodles separately, then put them in the bowls; cooked in the pot they drink the broth and turn it starchy.

150 min

Peruvian Soups

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Ají amarillo pasteYellow chilli paste

In Lima's markets ají amarillo is sold fresh all year, and most Peruvian cooks keep a tub of this paste in the fridge the way others keep tomato purée: it is the golden base of causa limeña, ají de gallina, papa a la huancaína, chupe and the sauce for tiraditos. The chillies are seeded, de-veined and blanched in three changes of water, which tames the heat and the raw grassiness, then peeled and blended with oil into a thick, silky, saffron-orange paste. It tastes fruity and sunny, almost like apricot and passion fruit, with a rounded, medium heat. Abroad, buy whole frozen ají amarillo from Latin grocers; dried ají mirasol, soaked, gives a darker, earthier paste. Common mistake: skipping the peeling; the thin skins leave papery flecks and a bitter edge. It is ready when it is completely smooth and holds a soft peak like thick hummus. This is a low-acid paste: keep it in the fridge for a week or freeze it, never on the shelf. Chef's tip: freeze it in an ice-cube tray; one cube is about a tablespoon, just right for a pot of ají de gallina.

40 min

Peruvian Basics

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Escabeche de pescadoFried fish in sweet-sour onion sauce

In Lima, escabeche de pescado belongs to the criollo kitchen of the old city: it turns up on Friday lunch menus, on buffet tables, and above all in Lent and Holy Week, when families eat fish and this dish can be made the day before. Fish is fried until golden, then covered in a warm sauce of thick-cut red onion softened in oil with garlic, ají amarillo, ají panca, cumin and vinegar, and left to cool so the flavours soak in. It is served cold or at room temperature with boiled sweet potato, hard-boiled egg and purple botija olives. It tastes tangy, sweet and gently fruity-hot, with crunchy onion over tender fish. The fish here is fully cooked, but because it is a cold seafood dish, pregnant people, babies, older people and anyone with weak immunity should eat it well chilled and within 2 days. Common mistake: stewing the onions until limp; they should only lose their raw bite. It is ready when the sauce has soaked a little into the fish and smells of vinegar and toasted chilli. Chef's tip: use thick fillets of corvina or bonito; thin fillets break under the sauce.

50 min

Peruvian Fish

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InchicapiPeanut chicken soup

From the riverside kitchens of Iquitos and the Peruvian Amazon comes inchicapi, a festive chicken soup traditionally made with a free-range hen for birthdays and fiestas. Raw peanuts and a little maize flour are ground and stirred into the broth, which turns it creamy, pale and nutty, and pieces of cassava, garlic, ají dulce and sacha culantro (a long, serrated, strongly flavoured coriander) finish it. It is served with rice, boiled plantain or cassava. If you can't find sacha culantro in Asian or Latin shops (sold as culantro or ngo gai), use a big handful of coriander. The pitfall is adding the peanut paste dry: it clumps and catches on the bottom, so loosen it with broth first and stir often. Chef's tip: use raw, not roasted, peanuts; they keep the soup pale and give it the right fresh, milky taste.

75 min

Peruvian Soups

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Jalea mixtaMixed fried seafood with cassava

Ordered to share at a Lima cevichería on a Sunday, jalea mixta arrives as a tall golden pile: chunks of white fish, squid rings and prawns, all in a light, crackly coat, on top of fried cassava and buried under a fresh tangle of salsa criolla. The contrast is the point, hot and crunchy underneath, cold, sour and sharp on top, with tartar sauce or ají on the side and cold drinks all round. A frequent mistake is crowding the oil, which drops its temperature and gives you a soggy, greasy coat; fry in small batches and let the oil come back up between them. Chef's tip: boil the cassava first and let it steam dry before frying; it turns fluffy inside and shatteringly crisp outside.

45 min

Peruvian Fish

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MajariscoPlantain mash with seafood

Its name blends 'majado' (mashed plantain) and 'marisco' (seafood), and along the coast of Piura and Tumbes, near the Ecuadorian border, it's what cevicherías and beach restaurants serve when you want something hot and filling. Mashed green plantain is folded into a sauce of garlic, onion, ají and seafood juices, with prawns, squid and mussels running through it, so every forkful is creamy, garlicky and briny. Serve it with lime and salsa criolla. Mussels must be alive: tap any open ones and discard those that don't close, and discard any that stay shut after cooking. Overcooking the seafood is the most frequent mistake; it goes in at the end, just until pink and opaque. Chef's tip: keep the mussel cooking liquid and use it to loosen the mash; it's pure seafood flavour.

55 min

Peruvian Fish

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Maki acevichadoPrawn tempura rolls with ceviche sauce

Lima's Nikkei sushi bars invented the acevichado and it has become the roll every Peruvian orders: prawn tempura and avocado rolled in rice, topped with thin slices of fish and drenched in a creamy, lime-sharp sauce built from leche de tigre, ají amarillo and mayonnaise. Crisp, warm, cold and tangy in one bite, it is party food and Friday-night takeaway alike. For a safer topping, use sashimi-grade fish frozen at −20 °C for 24 hours first, keep it cold and eat the rolls at once; you can also sear the slices with a blowtorch or use cooked prawns instead. Even so, the raw-fish topping is not for pregnant women, young children or anyone with a weakened immune system. Overfilling is the usual mistake: the roll won't close and the rice splits. Chef's tip: use a pasteurised-egg mayonnaise and wet your hands with vinegared water so the rice doesn't stick.

90 min

Peruvian Fish

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MenestrónBeef, bean and pasta soup

Think of the Italian minestrone after a century of Lima kitchens: menestrón is thicker, heartier and greener, a weekday soup that families and menú restaurants make in huge pots. Beef shin simmers into a rich broth with potatoes, squash, corn, cabbage, green beans and white beans, then short pasta goes in, and finally a purée of basil, spinach, garlic and fresh cheese turns the whole pot pale green and fragrant. It is a meal in a bowl, best with bread and a squeeze of lime or a spoon of ají. People tend to add the basil purée too early; boiled, it loses its colour and its scent, so stir it in off the heat. Chef's tip: for a vegetarian menestrón, skip the beef and use vegetable stock, with a cheese made with microbial (vegetarian) rennet.

100 min

Peruvian Soups

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PatarashcaLeaf-wrapped grilled fish

Wrapping fish in leaves and cooking it over embers is how the riverside towns of Loreto and San Martín have always cooked their catch, and in Iquitos patarashca is sold on Belén market grills and in the restaurants along the Malecón. A whole fish or thick fillet is smeared with garlic, ají dulce, tomato, onion, cumin and sacha culantro, folded in large bijao leaves and grilled until the parcel chars and the fish steams in its own juices. When you open it, the flesh is soft and fragrant with herbs. Banana leaves from Asian shops are the best swap for bijao; foil works at a pinch. Too thin a parcel is the usual mistake: the leaves burn through and the fish dries out, so use two layers. Chef's tip: serve it in the opened leaf with boiled plantain or cassava and spoon up every drop of the juices.

45 min

Peruvian Fish

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PatascaHominy and tripe soup

Through the highlands of Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Apurímac, patasca (also called mondongo) is the soup for cold mornings, carnivals and the day after a fiesta: plump white mote, dried maize kernels that burst open like flowers after long boiling, in a clear, rich broth with honeycomb tripe and beef shin, perfumed with mint and oregano. It is filling and gentle, and gets its fire at the table from a spoon of rocoto sauce. Plan ahead: the maize needs an overnight soak and several hours of simmering. Buy tripe cleaned and blanched from a butcher or Latin or halal shop; it must be simmered until soft and fully cooked. The typical mistake is salting the mote early, which keeps the kernels hard. Chef's tip: cook the maize and the tripe in separate pots, then combine; each needs a different time and the broth stays cleaner.

240 min

Peruvian Soups

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Pulpo al olivoOctopus with olive mayonnaise

Created in Lima in the 1950s by a Japanese-Peruvian chef, pulpo al olivo is now a fixture of Nikkei restaurants and smart cevicherías: paper-thin rounds of tender, cold octopus covered with a smooth violet mayonnaise of Botija olives, the big, dark, fruity olives of the southern coast. It is cool, rich and briny, eaten as a starter with lime and a drizzle of olive oil. Allow 1 hour for chilling after cooking. Tough octopus is the usual let-down, and the fix is simple: use frozen octopus (freezing tenderises it) and simmer gently, never at a rolling boil. Because the sauce is an egg emulsion, make it with a pasteurised egg, or use a good ready-made mayonnaise. Chef's tip: slice the octopus while it's cold and firm; warm octopus slices raggedly.

85 min

Peruvian Fish

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ShámbarWheat, bean and smoked pork soup

Mondays in Trujillo mean shámbar: market stalls and huariques across the city put out pots of this thick, smoky soup of cracked wheat, chickpeas, broad beans, peas and canary beans, cooked with smoked ham hock, pork ribs and pork skin, then stirred through with a fried paste of ají panca and garlic and a handful of mint. It is earthy, porky and rib-sticking, and each bowl gets a scoop of crunchy cancha just before eating. Soak the beans and the wheat overnight. People often cook everything together from the start, and the peas turn to mush before the chickpeas soften; cook the hardest pulses first. Chef's tip: toast the wheat in a dry pan before soaking it; it gives the soup a nutty depth the locals look for.

180 min

Peruvian Soups

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Thimpu de carachiPoached fish with potatoes

Around the shores of Lake Titicaca, thimpu is weekday food and Lent food alike: carachi, a small native lake fish, laid over potatoes and chuño (freeze-dried Andean potato) and gently poached, then drenched at the table with a hot sauce of onion fried with ají. The fish is soft and delicate, the chuño earthy and pleasantly chewy, and the sauce brings colour and fire. Outside Puno, small whole trout, tilapia or perch, or thick trout fillets, work well. Chuño needs an overnight soak (plan for it) and is sold in Andean and Latin shops; swap in extra waxy potatoes if you can't find it. The trap here is boiling the fish hard so it falls apart; keep the water at a bare shiver. Chef's tip: make the sauce while the fish poaches and spoon it on boiling hot, so it sizzles over the plate.

60 min

Peruvian Fish

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TiraditoSliced fish in ají amarillo sauce

Lima's Japanese-Peruvian cooks turned ceviche on its head with tiradito: instead of cubes soaked in lime, the fish is cut thin like sashimi, laid flat and dressed at the last minute, so it stays silky with only the surface turning white. The sauce here is the classic golden one, ají amarillo blended with lime, garlic and ginger, fruity and medium hot. It is served as a starter in cevicherías and upmarket Miraflores restaurants with boiled sweet potato and corn. Because the fish is eaten almost raw, this version uses sashimi-grade fish frozen at −20 °C for 24 hours first (allow for that), kept cold and eaten the moment it is dressed; it is not for pregnant women, young children or anyone with a weakened immune system. The mistake people make is dressing it ahead: after ten minutes the lime cooks it through and it turns chalky. Chef's tip: chill the plates in the freezer for 10 minutes before you lay out the fish; it keeps the slices firm while you work.

20 min

Peruvian Fish

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Trucha fritaFried trout with potatoes and rice

Rainbow trout farmed in the cold, clear water of Lake Titicaca is what you eat in Puno, at lakeside restaurants and on the floating islands: a whole fish, dusted in flour and fried until the skin crackles, with boiled Andean potatoes, rice, a simple salad and lime. The flesh is pink-white, sweet and moist; nothing else is needed. Ask your fishmonger to gut and scale the trout. The most common mistake is moving the fish too early, which tears the skin; leave it until it releases from the pan by itself. Chef's tip: slash the thick part of each side twice before flouring, so the fish cooks evenly and the skin crisps right up to the head.

30 min

Peruvian Fish

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Paiche a la parrillaGrilled paiche steaks

Paiche (arapaima), one of the largest freshwater fish on earth, has thick, white, almost boneless flesh, and in Iquitos it is farmed and cut into meaty steaks that sizzle on the grills of riverside restaurants. Marinated briefly in garlic, lime, cumin and achiote, it chars on the outside and stays juicy and mild inside, a little like cod but firmer. Serve it with a tomato and onion salad, rice, or tacacho (mashed fried plantain balls). Frozen farmed paiche is sold in some fishmongers; thick cod, halibut or hake loin are good stand-ins. Leaving it in lime too long is the big mistake: the acid starts to 'cook' the surface and it sticks and tears on the grill, so 15 minutes is plenty. Chef's tip: oil the fish, not the grill, and don't move it for the first 3 minutes so it forms a crust and releases cleanly.

25 min

Peruvian Fish

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Chairo puneñoLamb, chuño and wheat soup

High on the Altiplano, where nights freeze even in summer, chairo is the soup that gets Puno's market workers and farmers through the day. It is thick and brothy at once: lamb on the bone and a little charqui (dried meat) simmered with crushed chuño, peeled wheat, broad beans, potatoes and squash, scented with cumin, oregano and huacatay or mint. Expect a deep, meaty, slightly smoky bowl with lots of chew. Soak the chuño and the wheat overnight. A common error is adding the potatoes with the meat, so they dissolve before the lamb is tender; they go in for the last 25 minutes. Chef's tip: crush the soaked chuño into small pieces by hand; they thicken the broth as it cooks.

120 min

Peruvian Soups

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Choros a la chalacaCold mussels with corn salsa

Named for the people of Callao, Lima's port, choros a la chalaca are what you order with friends at a seafront cevichería on a hot afternoon: steamed mussels, chilled, each on its half shell under a bright, wet salsa of red onion, tomato, Andean corn, rocoto and lime. Cool, sweet, briny and sharp, they are eaten with your fingers in two bites, often before a ceviche or a jalea. Here the mussels are fully steamed open first, so nothing is served raw. People often overcook them while waiting for the last stubborn shells, which leaves the rest rubbery; lift them out as soon as each one opens. Chef's tip: dress the salsa no more than 15 minutes ahead, and spoon a little of the juice onto every mussel; that juice is the whole point of the dish.

30 min

Peruvian Fish

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Chupe de camaronesPrawn chowder

Arequipa's picanterías serve one chupe on each day of the week, and the prawn one, made with crayfish-like camarones from the Majes and Ocoña rivers, is the grandest, especially on Fridays in Lent. It is a big orange chowder: a broth made from the prawn shells and heads, coloured with ají panca, filled with potatoes, corn, broad beans and a little rice, then softened with evaporated milk and fresh cheese, with an egg poached in each bowl. Rich, sweet and gently spicy, it needs nothing but bread. Large shell-on prawns stand in well for river prawns. Many cooks boil the prawns from the start and they turn to rubber; add them at the end and cook only until pink and opaque. Chef's tip: fry the heads and shells in the oil first and press them hard; the orange fat that comes out is what gives chupe its colour and depth.

75 min

Peruvian Soups

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Sopa de quinuaQuinoa and vegetable soup

Sopa de quinua is everyday food in the Andes, from Puno on Lake Titicaca to Cusco and Huancayo, where quinoa has been grown for thousands of years. Quinoa, potato, carrot and corn simmer in a light broth seasoned with garlic, cumin, oregano and a little ají amarillo, and the potato breaks down slightly to give body. It is light yet filling, the soup families eat at midday to warm up in cold mountain air. In Peru it is finished with huacatay, the black mint of the Andes; a mix of mint and coriander stands in well. Chef's tip: rinse the quinoa in a sieve under running water, rubbing it, until the water stops foaming; the natural saponin coating tastes bitter and soapy.

40 min

Peruvian Soups

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So'o yosopyGround beef and rice soup

So'o yosopy, "pounded meat" in Guaraní, is a soup Paraguayans make for anyone who is tired or recovering, and on cold days in Asunción's winter: beef is ground very finely and stirred into cold water so it breaks into soft, delicate threads, then simmered with onion, tomato, pepper and a little rice and oregano. The texture is smooth and the broth light. The mistake is adding the beef to boiling water, which makes it clump into meatballs; mix it into cold water first and stir as it heats. Chef's tip: ask the butcher to mince lean beef twice, or pulse it very fine in a food processor.

55 min

Paraguayan Soups

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Vegetarian vori voriCornmeal dumpling and vegetable soup

Vori vori is the soup Paraguayan grandmothers make on cold June and July evenings: a golden broth full of bori, small balls of cornmeal and cheese that swell soft as they simmer. The name is a Guaraní take on the Spanish 'bolita' (little ball). It's usually made with hen; this version gets its colour and body from pumpkin, carrot and a sofrito with saffron or turmeric. Chef's tip: shape the balls no bigger than a hazelnut; they double in size and larger ones stay raw inside.

70 min

Paraguayan Soups

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