Peruvian recipe
How to make Papa a la huancaína
Named after Huancayo, in the central Andes, now eaten all over Peru
Slices of boiled potato covered in a creamy, gently spicy sauce of fresh white cheese and yellow ají amarillo chilli, served cold on lettuce with a black olive and a slice of hard-boiled egg.
Ingredients
- 6 medium yellow potatoes
- 3 tablespoons ají amarillo paste, or 2 mild yellow chillies, seeds removed
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil and half an onion, chopped
- 1 garlic clove
- 150 g fresh white cheese made from pasteurised milk, such as queso fresco or feta (for pregnant women, older people or anyone with a weak immune system, use pasteurised feta)
- 120 ml evaporated milk
- 4 plain crackers (optional, to thicken the sauce)
- Lettuce leaves, 2 hard-boiled eggs and black olives, to serve
Method
- Boil the potatoes until tender, about 20 minutes. Let them cool, peel and cut into thick slices.
- Fry the onion, garlic and chilli in the oil for 5 minutes, until soft.
- Blend them with the cheese, evaporated milk and crackers until smooth and thick, like double cream. Add a little salt if needed.
- Put lettuce leaves on a plate, lay the potato slices on top and pour over the sauce.
- Decorate with halves of hard-boiled egg and black olives and serve cold.
Made it at home? Tick it off and it goes into your kitchen passport.
The best-known story says the dish was sold to passengers, or cooked for workers, along the railway between Lima and Huancayo, which gave it the name 'potatoes Huancayo style'.
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