The Andes · Volume 17, Altitude, Chuño and the Picantería Table
Ocopa arequipeña
Arequipa, Peru
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- Not statedNo source states a time and the atlas has too few comparable dishes to estimate one.
- Researched
- No outside sources linked
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
As tradition built it
Ocopa arequipeña
Name's own etymology contested
Ingredients
- 2, fresh yellow ají amarillo
- 1, medium red onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 branch huacatay leaves
- ½ cup, evaporated milk
- for frying oil
- 4, dried, liquefied liquefied ají mirasol
- 50g, vanilla wafers crackers
- 1 heaped tbsp roasted peanuts
- 200g queso serrano
- to serve boiled potato, sliced
- 1, per plate lettuce leaf
- for garnish hard-boiled egg
- for garnish olives
- for garnish red pepper, in strips
Method
- Fry ají amarillo, red onion, garlic and huacatay leaves together for around five minutes.
- Blend with milk, oil, liquefied ají mirasol, crackers, roasted peanuts and queso serrano.
- Pour over sliced boiled potato set on a lettuce leaf.
- Garnish with hard-boiled egg, olives and strips of red pepper.
Notes
A widely told story that Inca chasquis carried a bag of the same name holding chillies and ground peanuts for energy on long routes has the shape of an invented tale rather than documented history and is not asserted here as fact.
What a modern chef changes
Batán base, blender-finished
Rung 03
Method
- Grind the sauce on the batán exactly as tradition specifies for as long as it takes to build the base.
- Finish it in the high-power blender only at the very end, for a texture that carries the batán's own coarser character forward rather than erasing it.
- Roast and grind the peanuts fresh in the spice grinder immediately before blending.
- Pass the finished sauce through the chinois for a smoother pour over the potato.