Teaching Moments... For Us All-5/4/09

I have decided on a new rule of cooking. If working with ingredients I am unfamiliar with, I need to taste test them before liberally putting them in a number of dishes. Here's why. Tonight I made the dishes in May Gourmet's article "Hot and Sweet", a menu of Peruvian dishes that starts on page 108. I've heard a lot about Peruvian cuisine but I've never eaten or made an entire meal of Peruvian dishes. I found every ingredient in this entire menu in the extensive Peruvian section at Super H Mart. Four dishes called for either aji amarillo or aji misasol paste. I found aji amarillo, a rather innocuous looking yellow sauce. Looks can be deceiving. This stuff is hot! I could handle it but poor Eyrleigh started crying and grabbing her tongue. I felt terrible. I take responsibility for not testing this sauce before putting tablespoons, sometimes several tablespoons, in each dish. I am surprised, however, that Gourmet's test kitchen did not at some point use the phrase, "add to taste". This is often code in cooking magazines for "this might be hot, so don't add too much".

The first recipe of this menu was for Pina Pisco Sours, a mixed drink made with pisco, the national drink of Peru. Basically a type of brandy, pisco is very potent as compared to a French brandy. The drink was tempered by pineapple juice (I bought juice instead of juicing a pineapple), lime juice, sugar, bitters, and curiously, egg whites. I think the egg whites were for the frothy visual effect because I doubt they made a taste difference. The drink was good and reminded me a bit of a margarita, I think that was the lime and pineapple flavoring.

Like many of the menus in Gourmet, there were several starters. One of these recipes, the Grilled Beef Brochettes, were the family favorite from the menu. This recipe was excellent. I began marinating this dish in the morning so it had quite awhile to absorb the flavors of the marinade. This dish used aji panca, a different Peruvian paste than the aji amarillo that I spoke about above. In retrospect, I would have like more recipes with this sauce. The aji panca had more flavor and less heat, similar to a chipotle sauce.

The prettiest recipe of the menu but also one of the hottest was the Scallop Ceviche with "Tiger's Milk". I put the picture of this dish at the top of the post because this dish was so attractive. I've heard of ceviche, the citrus and seafood appetizer, popular in Latin American countries but I don't think I've ever eaten it. I mistakenly thought it was more of a cold soup, like gazpacho. I did find the choclo kernels that the dish recommended and thought they were a great addition. They gave the dish a chewy component to contrast the crunch of onion and the smoother sweet potato and scallops. I liked the dish but wished I'd added a little less aji amarillo sauce so I could better appreciate the flavors. After a few bites, I was mostly tasting heat.

The Potatoes with Cheese Sauce also used the aji amarillo paste and this overpowered the more mild queso fresco. I again tasted more heat than cheese. I found fingerling potatoes that had the striking color the recipe recommended but I foolishly used the slicer on my food processor to save time and ended up with broken potatoes instead of sliced potatoes as you can see at right.

The main dish, Chicken in Chile Sauce, used a whopping 3 to 4 tablespoons of the aji amarillo paste in the chile sauce. I ate very little of the sauce because of this. The chicken was simply browned in a pan and then roasted in the oven. Without the sauce, the chicken was like any other oven roasted chicken. The recipe said this dish is normally made with shredded chicken soaked in the sauce. If the sauce was a little less spicy, I think I would have liked this method better. It would have showcased the sauce better than simply using it as a dip for the cut pieces of chicken.

The side dish of Peruvian Rice and Lentils was a basic dish but tasted very authentic. I guess since I've never eaten Peruvian food before, I'm not one to determine authenticity but this dish had a very everyday quality to it. It was filling and flavorful (that aji amarillo paste again) but not complicated. I liked the mix of rice and lentils more than lentils alone. I find lentils a bit gritty and the rice tempered that and added texture.

The Quinoa Salad with Fresh Hearts of Palm was also very flavorful. I could not find fresh hearts of palm. The recipe mentioned it might be difficult but I ignored the recommendation to replace the fresh hearts of palm with chayote, and instead used canned hearts of palm. I don't think I've ever eaten hearts of palm so I thought I wouldn't be able to taste the difference between fresh and canned. Plus, I couldn't find chayote at Kroger and I didn't feel like going to Super H Mart 2 days in a row. This dish was fresh and even more refreshing in that it didn't have aji amarillo paste and so was one of the few dishes without heat. Eyrleigh really liked this dish too and intentionally picked out the hearts of palm to eat. She didn't mind at all that they were canned.

Making this dish did remind me though that there is one kitchen implement I still need, an adjustable blade slicer.

The dessert, Dulce De Leche Torte with Naranjilla Ice Cream was very simple. I was thrilled to find the Naranjilla puree at Super H Mart and true to its description, it's very similar to an orange flavor but green. The torte was basically four pastry rounds baked and stuck together with caramel. The only thing that was a bit frustrating was that in order to fit the pastry rounds on the baking sheet, I didn't roll them thin enough and they were more the width of a graham cracker than a think, crackly pastry. I would have liked it to be little sweeter too but that may have been product of its thickness.

This menu really was a lot of fun to make and it wasn't difficult to do in a day. I even had time to print out and color a Peruvian flag and map with Eyrleigh. Ok, I colored and she scribbled over the top but hey, it's never to early to start learning. I learned too, that I wasn't sure of the location of several South American countries so I filled in the rest of the map as review. Oh, and I learned to taste things before I put a lot of them in dishes.

Pina Pisco Sours-B

Grilled Beef Brochettes-A

Scallop Ceviche with "Tiger's Milk"-B

Potatoes with Cheese Sauce-C

Chicken in Chile Sauce-C

Peruvian Rice and Lentils-B

Quinoa Salad with Fresh Hearts of Palm-B+

Dulce De Leche Torte-B

Naranjilla Ice Cream-B+