Peruvian Comfort Food - Tallarines Verdes

Of all the Peruvian dishes there are, there is none that warms my heart more and is most satisfying on frustrating day than tallarines verdes.  This is one dish that The Momster (who's American) thoroughly conquered in her repertoire of Peruvian dishes, and few people do it as well as she does.  It's a dish that's also very simple to just whip up at the last minute....call it the Peruvian version of boxed mac n' cheese.  A few restaurants serve it with a typical grilled or breaded fried minute steak, but this is a dish best savored at home and preferably made by a mom.  The name means "green noodles", and it basically consists of pasta (usually spaghetti or linguine) tossed in a pureed mixture of spinach, basil, and milk.  Of course, there are few little secrets here and there to make it taste just right.  Garlic is a must, and The Momster adds cream cheese for added richness and body.  Served with a sprinkle of parmesan cheese and maybe a dollop of ají (read here), you have yourself a satisfyingly simple meal.

There's so much talk of ceviches and seafood dishes in Peruvian cuisine, which are all great but are primarily eaten and prepared in restaurants.  If you want to know what Peruvians eat on a daily basis, then tallarines verdes are a good place to start.  Here's what you'll need:

• 1 10 oz pkg frozen spinach, thawed
• 1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1/2 cup packed fresh basil or jarred basil paste (found at a Peruvian market)
• 2 cups whole milk (equal parts evaporated milk and water/broth is even better!)
• 1/2 cup cream cheese
• 1 tablespoon grated parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat a sauce pan with the olive oil on medium heat.
2. Fry the onions and garlic until the onions become translucent.  
3. Add the thawed spinach and the basil or basil paste and cook this mixture for 5 minutes or until spinach is softened and basil (if raw) is cooked.
4. Put all of the above in the blender with 1 cup of milk 1/2 cup of cream cheese, and the parmesan cheese and liquefy until it becomes uniformly green.  Continue adding milk until you get a consistency that's to your liking.  If you make the sauce too thin, you can add more cream cheese to thicken it.
5. Pour the mixture into a saucepan and cook on medium heat until the sauce is heated through.
6. Season with salt and pepper to taste
7. Toss with your favorite pasta and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.  I found that this goes really well with penne pasta

I know this is like the 3rd article on Peruvian cuisine in less than a week, but after having it for dinner tonight I knew I just had to share it.

Lúcuma Ice Cream Mix

Neopolitan ice cream usually is composed of three distinct flavors: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry.  This is true in almost every country but Peru, where Neopolitan ice cream consists of chocolate, vanilla and lúcuma.  Lúcuma is a fruit that is native to Peru and has been prized since pre-Inca times as can be seen pottery motifs from that period.  It is related to the canistel fruit that grows in South Florida and is widely cultivated in Cuba and the Caribbean.  The flavor is hard to pinpoint and is something that brings warm and fuzzy feelings to most Peruvians just like peanut butter with Americans.  It is one fruit that, while sweet, has a great deal of umami that made me compare it in flavor to a very astringent tomato.  Of course, the idea a tomato-flavored ice cream is one that would be challenging even to the most adventurous eaters.  Upon tasting a ripe persimmon for the first time, I realized that the flavor was similar and both it and the lúcuma have an astringent quality to them.  Still, it wasn't quite the same.  The best description I've seen was first read in a Travel + Leisure article on the new Lima and its vibrant food scene, which described the taste of lúcuma as a cross between maple syrup and sweet potato.  Although much more complex than that, this seems to be the most spot-on description for American palates.

Fresh lúcuma, outside of Peru and California, is almost impossible to come by.  Frozen lúcuma pulp is available at most Peruvian groceries in South Florida, but costs anywhere from $7 to $15 for a packet.  Lúcuma ice cream produced by D'Onofrio is now readily available in most well-stocked Peruvian groceries, but are still about 3 times the price of their American Blue Bunny counterparts.  During my last trip to a Peruvian grocery called Mi Tierra in North Miami Beach, I found a sachet of instant lúcuma ice cream mix for a reasonable price made by Universal brand, which also makes other instant ice cream mixes like guanábana (soursop) and maracuyá (passion fruit). The instructions on the back of the packet required the use of an electric hand mixer to beat the powder together with one cup of milk until it becomes foamy and doubles in volume.  In effect, it creates a lúcuma mousse.   Given the lack of readily-available ice cream makers to the Peruvian middle and working class, the instructions then require you to fill serving cups with the mousse and leave in the freezer until it sets.  I decided to make a richer base with a combination of heavy cream and whole milk and froze it in a Cuisinart ice cream maker.  The resulting ice cream was rich and dense and tasted just like D'Onofrio lúcuma ice cream.  I recommend buying it if you're a fan of lúcuma ice cream or as a sweet finale to a Peruvian dinner.

Mi Tierra

16461 W Dixie Hwy 

North Miami Beach, FL 33160

(305) 947-1935

www.tiendamitierra.com

Gilt Taste Offers Peruvian Products

So I guess Peruvian cuisine is getting a little more recognition within the US gourmet scene as evidenced in Gilt Taste's offerings of organic Peruvian products that include things that are exotic even to most Peruvians (Pussac Punay and Kañiwa?).  I was glad to see a collection of ají pastes that include ají amarillo (the backbone of Peruvian cuisine), ají limo (for ceviches), and ají panca (Peru's answer to chipotle).  Ají is what us Peruvians call chili peppers (chiles for Mexicans).  There is also a selection of dried ají powders, which I've never had experience with, but considering that 99.9% of Peruvian cuisine - regardless of the region - uses fresh ají, I wouldn't recommend the powders.

There are also a lot of flours and grains offered, like quinoa, kiwicha (amaranth), purple corn flour, and others.  While some of these products are not representative of products Peruvians actually use, it is interesting to see that such native products are being cultivated and packaged and will probably go to use in the nouveau Peruvian cuisine that is coming into its own these days but has yet to conquer the world like other ethnic cuisines have.  It might just be an issue of marketing, although I think that the issue is much deeper than that and has a lot to do with how non-Latin Americans view Latin American cuisine drawn from their experiences with Mexican and Caribbean cuisines, which have nothing to do with Peruvian cuisine.  You'll probably read more of my thoughts on contemporary Peruvian cuisine in the future, but for the mean time, check out the Peruvian products on sale at Gilt Taste, as well as their well-chosen selection of other gourmet products (I'm ogling the molecular gastronomy pantry items....maybe it's the year to experiment with xanthan gum and soy lecithin)