Peruvian cooking class ...at Ceica Spanish School

In our haste to post about our Spanish Class & touring Arequipa, we neglected to mention our final Spanish lesson, a cooking class that turned out to be a full meal complete with a pisco sour.

We started with a freeze-dried potato appetizer. No we didn't freeze dry the potatoes. Freeze drying potatoes turns out to be an ancient Peruvian custom.  What with the often freezing nights, the weather is perfect for leaving potatoes out over night to freeze and then squeezing the water out of them after they thaw out. This way potatoes can last for years.  When you are ready to use them, rehydrate with water. In the photo the potato looks a bit like bread dough, so don't be confused.  The result: not bad. Not the same as a fresh potato, but not the same as potato buds either.  

Freeze dried potatoes

The featured dish was Rocoto Relleno, a local dish we had sampled twice already. 

Rocoto is a slightly spicy pepper that is the shape, color, and size of a red pepper. It’s de-seeded and de-stemmed, boiled to soften and removed the spice, then stuffed with goodies such as finely cut steak, cheese, black olives, ground peanuts, various Peruvian spices, raisins, and then baked.

Rocoto Relleno is typically served with Pastel de Papa – layers of thinly sliced potato baked with cheese and eggs. Not only are they a tasty combination, they are the perfect companions for a one dish meal. They can share a pan & the combination is drenched in the same sauce. 

This was accompanied by a shredded zucchini dish and followed by a toasted wheat  dessert that had just a hint of sweetness.  A fine finish to the meal.

Shredded zucchini and pisco sour

Outakes from the cooking class...

How to cut corn kernels from the cob: Start with Peruvian corn.
Note how huge the kernels are. We've had fine sweet large-kerneled corn and
some that truly should have been fed to the cattle

To separate the egg white from the yolk, make a small hole in the top of the egg
and then slowly drain out the white.

BTW they say there are more than 3000 kinds of potatoes available here. However, it is more likely that there are something more like 300 that anyone can really distinguish. Each time we have potatoes there are a least 3 kinds. One is very mealy. One is more moist/waxy. And one is in-between.  For more about the potatoes of Peru, see: http://www.limaeasy.com/peruvian-food-guide/typical-potatoes