Papa Huancaina

[elfin]

Would love to make Papa Huancaina (Peruvian boiled potatos with cheese sauce) to eat while I am drinking my Pisco Sours. It seems so simple but there is something elusive about the stuff. Any input is most appreciated. Thanks

[marlena spieler]

i use a good jack cheese........grated...........a little sour cream helps bind it together, a pinch of turmeric gives it golden colour.....chile, pinch of cumin if you like, little chopped garlic or green onion? lets see, does it have line juice in it? a little finely diced tomato? i forget. i've got a good recipe in my book hot & spicy though its been out of date about 2 decades now, and can't put my hands on it right this minute.

gentle heating is important.

i do love it. bet someone out there in egullet land has just the perfect recipe!

i like it on boiled potatoes and green beans.

[annieb]

A downstairs neighbor who is peruano had an excellent version:

A feta cheese (more like a Bulgarian than a creamy Hungarian if that helps, that's what they sell at the local produce market here)

Saltines

Bijol for food coloring

Water

In a blender, blend.

Garnish with hard boiled eggs and olives, if you can't get peruvian (or they're too pricey) he used to use kalamatas.

Also a good potato that will hold it's shape, not really a red waxy, around here there's a thin-skinned variety called papa criolla, although yukon golds work also.

My guess would be that it's not the something missing that's elusive, it's the "too much stuff" that is detracting from what is a brilliantly simple dish.

[godito]

Elfin, if you've had the original and that's what you're trying to recreate, then you're probably missing the aji amarillo (yellow chile). I don't know if you can find them dried wherever you are, but you can also find it in powder or as a paste.

Other than that you need some oil, onions (red), garlic, soda crackers, evaporated milk (that's wat they use in Peru for a lot of their cooking), you can add a bit of cumin and the cheese: queso fresco. The mexican viriety or something like that works great. Like marlena said, though, use good cheese.

And, if to that very good preparation you add some roasted peanuts, you have ocopa sauce (well, it's nopt exactly the same exact recipe, but it works great also -- I've tried it). You can have both sauces with some hard boiled eggs, potatoes, olives, corn, yuca or just toast. You can also thin it out a bit with oil and make a dressing out of them!

[lperry]

Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Aji amarillo.

Click

Godito, I was under the impression that the addition of peanuts to this sauce is common in Bolivia but not in Peru. Do you happen to know?

-Linda

[wattacetti]

The Art of Peruvian Cuisine's website has the following recipe for ocopa and huancaina.

[godito]

Godito, I was under the impression that the addition of peanuts to this sauce is common in Bolivia but not in Peru. Do you happen to know?

Yes, the huancaina sauce in bolivia is made with peanuts. I'm not exactly sure if that's the same recipe as the ocopa in peru, but they taste very similar to me. The difference is that in Peru, for the original Ocopa, they use Huacatay, which is a very aromatic herb. I'm not sure if they use it in bolivia, although I was told it grows there.

[John S.]

Would love  to make Papa Huancaina (Peruvian boiled potatos with cheese sauce) to eat while I am drinking my Pisco Sours.  It seems so simple but there is something elusive about the stuff.  Any input is most appreciated. Thanks

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The recipe at the web site wattacetti mentioned looks very authentic. I had the dish in Peru many years ago. Huancayo is a very interesting town - via el ferrocarril central, high in the mountains. Getting there was half the fun. We also had trucha frita (don't know if that's what they called it) - delicious. I agree with annieb that it is a delicate dish and that less is more. I always wondered what the lure of peruvian cooking was, but I was always a "more hotter, more better" type eater. I have seen aji panca in prepackaged plastic bags in latin stores around the SF Bay Area, but the owners were South American. Of course you can mail-order.

One more thing is that I have no idea where to find huacatay. It is a black mint used in peru, perhaps approximated by one of the mexican herbs like hoja santa, etc. You can get that online, too. If possible, don't use the aji amarillo in jars, try to get it fresh (dried... ha ha).