Once I finished the market tour, I was transferred to the cooking school and we had a fruit tasting session. Peru has this many fruits to offer!
After the fruit tasting, the first dish we worked on is causa. Causa is a layered mashed potato dish with different ingredients between the layers. I had found that almost all the cooking classes offer causa, yet I'd hardly seen this at the Peruvian restaurants in the US. After taking the class, I found out why. The basic recipe is quite simple but the problem is obtaining the right potato. The particular potato I used to make this causa is yellow, less moist and glutenous. I don't think I can find the same potato in the US. The instructor chef said I can compensate by using dried mashed potato powder. Even if that's a last resort, I'm going to mix different potatoes to get the right texture in order to avoid using potato powder....
Fillings and toppings can be anything, and the choices and combinations are infinite. I'd like to nail the basic potato recipe and create my own version of causa! The photo below is the causa with chicken salad and avocado.
[Added in Jun 2020 - Causa cooking video with mg own personal twists]
This is definitely the highlight of the cooking class. It's a basic cebiche. By the way, cebiche can be spelled either cebiche or ceviche. I've made cebiche myselft but the class teaches me a couple of twists that I didn't know. One is fish stock and the other is evaporated milk. Diluting the marinade with fish stock and adding more flavor completely makes sense. Just lime juice by itself could be too edgy but adding fish stock will make it more rounded while providing additional umami from the stock. However, the addition of evaporated milk was a total surprise. I knew the liquid for the cebiche is called leche de tigre (tiger's milk) but I didn't expect actual dairy milk. I don't know if this is an original idea of the instructor or whether it's traditional. But it did make it tasty! Also, another surprise was the marinating time. I thought that fish needs to be marinated 30-60 minutes to be cured and absorb the flavors. However, it doesn't have to be marinated for long if the fish is fresh. In fact, the marinating time was barely 10 min. It was just superb!
The entree was lomo saltado. I've tried a few different versions of lomo saltado since I came to Peru. Since everything I tasted was different, I really don't know what lomo saltado is supposed to taste like. One ingredient I didn't expect in this recipe was red wine - I feel like it wasn't seasoned well. Unfortunately, it wasn't the best lomo saltado I've ever had.
The dessert is picarones, deep fried donuts with dark syrup. I had this yesterday at the street food tasting in the city center. We made it from scratch with sweet potato folded yeast dough. The ring shape is made with one hand. And every single student in the class tried it. That was very tough. Nonetheless, it was tasty.
The two dishes I learned about the most from the class are absolutely causa and cebiche. I have to try them as soon as I get home!
Because of the cooking, class, I wasn't that hungry for dinner. So, I decided to go to a seafood restaurant, called Pescados Capitales, to have a few appetizers. Since the first tiradito I had when I arrived in Lima wasn't what I was expecting, I wanted to check out another tiradito. When the server brought this tiradito, I was a bit disappointed. It totally looks like the fish is covered with thousand island dressing. It didn't look good at all. However, the creamy sauce was made with cashew nuts and the yellow sauce on top was aji amarillo salsa. It was freaking good!! I thought it'd look better if the cashew sauce was between the plate and fish and the aji amarillo sauce was on top of the fish. Anyway, it tasted so good! I'm glad that my initial thoughts were wrong.
This dish was also amazing. Grilled octopus on top of causa base (seasoned mashed potato). Topped with arugula-like greens tossed with vinaigrette. The balance was perfect. I don't know how they seasoned the octopus but it was unbelievably well flavored!
I didn't want to order any dessert because I wanted to check out an ice cream shop after dinner. But when I saw cherimoya mousse on the menu, I had to try it.... Also, based on the previous amazing dish, I couldn't resist. They didn't disappoint me at all. It was very "cherimoya." Cherimoya is naturally rich and creamy. I don't know how much additional cream is added, but it was so good!
I had to have lucuma ice cream before I left Peru. I found a shop called "Amorelado" near the hotel. Ripe lucuma taste like baked sweet potato. This ice cream tasted like 70% lucuma. It was great!! I'm glad I pushed myself to go for ice cream.
Tomorrow is the last day in Peru. Another food tasting tour and nice dinner to follow!
No comments:
Post a Comment