Pique macho

As tradition built it

Pique macho

Serves 6. Traced to Cochabamba pilots from Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano, Paseo El Prado, 1970s

Ingredients

• 1kg beef loin
• 500g chicken fillet
• 200g chorizo
• 2kg waxy potatoes
• 2 tbsp oil
• 2 boiled eggs
• 2 onions
• 3 locotos
• 2 tbsp mustard
• 200ml soy sauce
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 cup beer
• to taste salt
• to taste pepper
• 2, diced tomato
• ½ cup vinegar
• to taste llajwa

Method

1. Trim and cube the beef and chicken to roughly 2cm.
2. Marinate in a blended paste of the garlic, one onion, the mustard, soy sauce, salt and pepper for 2 hours.
3. Cut the potatoes into large wedges and fry.
4. Sear the marinated meat over high heat 10 minutes, add the beer, cook a further 5 minutes.
5. Plate the fried potatoes, top with the seared meat, the warmed chorizo, sliced raw onion, sliced locoto, chopped tomato and the boiled egg.
6. Dress the whole plate with oil, vinegar, more beer and llajwa.

Notes

On the fullest account, the dish emerged from the regular weekend gatherings of Cochabamba pilots playing cacho at a restaurant on Paseo El Prado in the 1970s, reportedly unnamed until the pilots themselves christened it in passing.

What a modern chef changes

Twin sous vide, dehydrated potato, reduced glaze

Method

1. Cook the beef loin and chicken fillet sous vide, separately, to their own precise doneness.
2. Sear both hard and fast over the Big Green Egg's direct heat for the same browned crust the traditional pan-sear gives, with a more even interior than a single hot pan can deliver across two different proteins at once.
3. Dehydrate a portion of the potato wedges before frying, concentrating their surface starch for a crisper result that holds up longer under the plate's own juices than a straight fry manages.
4. Reduce the beer, soy and mustard marinade separately into a glaze, in the spice grinder's own reduction spirit, brushed over the finished plate rather than left as marinade residue in the pan.