Locro de Papa

As tradition built it

Locro de Papa

Serves 8 . about 50 minutes

Ingredients

• 1, diced onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tsp cumin
• 1 to 2 tsp, ground achiote
• 2 tbsp oil or lard
• 10 medium potatoes potatoes, peeled and diced
• 4 cups water
• 3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 cup, or more milk
• 1 cup fresh cheese, grated
• to serve avocado, sliced, to serve
• to serve ají, to serve, on the side

Method

1. Build a base of onion, garlic, cumin and achiote sautéed gently in oil or lard until soft and fragrant.
2. Add peeled, diced potatoes with around four cups of water and three cups of chicken or vegetable stock, and simmer until the potatoes break down almost entirely into the liquid, giving the soup its body without any added thickener.
3. Stir in milk and grated fresh cheese at the end, off the heat or over the lowest possible flame, so the cheese melts through without splitting.
4. Serve with sliced avocado on top and ají on the side rather than mixed in, so each diner controls their own heat.

What a modern chef changes

Smoke-roasted potato, cheese foam, dehydrated potato crisp

Method

1. Roast a portion of the potatoes whole in their skins on the Big Green Egg before peeling and adding them to the pot, so some of the soup's body comes from a genuinely smoky, caramelised potato rather than a purely boiled one; the smoke reads as a background note rather than a dominant flavour if only a third to a half of the total potato is treated this way.
2. Finish the soup through a chinois for a silkier, restaurant grade texture, and make the cheese element separately as a light, warm cheese foam, whisked and passed through a fine sieve, spooned over the top at the table rather than melted directly into the pot, so the dairy note arrives fresh rather than cooked.
3. Dry a few very thin potato slices in the dehydrator until crisp and use them as a garnish in place of the usual sliced avocado, keeping the avocado as a small, deliberate quenelle instead of a full slice.