Charquekán

As tradition built it

Charquekán

The charque soaks overnight. Potatoes, eggs and cheese go by the person.

Ingredients

The charque

• 500g charque (llama or beef)
• to cover water
• for frying oil

To serve

• 4 each potatoes, per person
• 450g mote (maize, peeled and cooked)
• 2 each eggs, per person
• 2 each pieces of cheese, per person
• to serve llajwa

Method

1. Soak the charque overnight to draw out the salt. Drain it the next day.
2. Cook it in water for 15 minutes.
3. Pound it and shred it into strips. Fry it in very hot oil until it is dark, toasted and tender, then pull it into fine strips.
4. Cook the potatoes, the mote and the eggs, each in its own pot.
5. Serve the charque with the potatoes, mote, hard-boiled egg and cheese, and llajwa.

Notes

The recipe is Opinión's charquekán orureño, from the archive of Charques María. Opinión's 2011 recipe shreds the charque before frying, has no cheese, and only brings the cooked mote back to the boil. Los Tiempos, with chef Juan Carlos Zabala, serves it with cheese or quesillo.

What a modern chef changes

Smoke-finished charque, soft yolk

Rung 02

Method

1. Rehydrate the charque in a controlled low-temperature water bath in the dehydrator's own reservoir rather than a plain soak, for a more even softening through the fibres before pounding.
2. Fry the shredded charque over the Big Green Egg's direct heat rather than a pan, for a genuine wood-smoke note the mining camps' own open fires would once have given it, honestly presented as a substitute rather than a replica of that specific fuel.
3. Serve the boiled egg soft, cooked sous vide to a still-liquid yolk, a small departure from the traditional hard-boiled egg that changes the dish's richness without changing what it fundamentally is.