Timpu (puchero cusqueño)

As tradition built it

Timpu (puchero cusqueño)

Served dry, solids plated separately from broth

Ingredients

The method as the tradition gives it, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them, lead dishes first.

• papa (potato)
• chuño
• 1kg yuca
• 1kg virraca (arracacha)
• 500g chalona
• 1kg beef brisket
• cow's head
• 1kg lamb
• bacon
• 1, whole cabbage
• 6, medium potatoes
• 500g moraya
• 200g chickpeas
• 500g rice
• to taste salt
• to taste hierba buena
• to taste muña

Method

1. Build a pre-Hispanic base of papa, chuño, yuca and virraca boiled with chalona.
2. Elaborate the base, as happened after the conquest, with beef brisket, cow's head, lamb, bacon, cabbage, potatoes, moraya, chickpeas and rice.
3. Put the meats into a large pot with plenty of water first and simmer at a steady simmer for roughly an hour and a half, until properly tender.
4. Add the remaining vegetables and pulses in sequence.
5. Season the whole pot with salt, hierba buena and muña.
6. Serve dry, the solids plated separately from their own broth rather than as one soup.

What a modern chef changes

Separated cuts, clarified broth

Method

1. Cook the beef brisket and the cow's head separately, sous vide, each to its own correct doneness, combining them only at final assembly, exactly as the dry-serving tradition already keeps solids and broth apart.
2. Pass the finished broth through a chinois for a genuine consommé clarity.
3. Dry a portion of the muña and hierba buena in the dehydrator, ground fresh in the spice grinder and finished over the plate.