Amazonia · Volume 23, The Andean Amazon
Patarashca
Loreto, Peru
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 20 minutes
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
As tradition built it
Patarashca
15 to 20 minutes over coals
Ingredients
- 4 (about 250g each) whole river fish (gamitana, paco, sábalo, boquichico or paiche among the Loreto roster)
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1, medium onion
- 1, diced sweet pepper
- 6 leaves sacha culantro
- 4 to 8 ají charapita
- 8 large leaves bijao leaf, for wrapping
Method
- Season the whole fish with garlic, onion, sweet pepper, sacha culantro and ají charapita.
- Briefly flame the bijao leaf before wrapping, to seal in moisture and scent the fish as it cooks.
- Wrap the fish in the leaf and grill directly over coals, or on a grill, for 15 to 20 minutes, turning partway through.
Notes
This chapter names the general Loreto river-fish roster, gamitana, paco, sábalo, boquichico and paiche, rather than asserting which is specifically preferred for this dish over the others, since no source found made that distinction with confidence.
What a modern chef changes
Sous vide inside the leaf, then a hot finish
Rung 01
Method
- Cook the fish itself sous vide inside its own leaf parcel, bagged around the wrapped leaf rather than instead of it, to a precise, still-moist doneness impossible to guarantee over open coals.
- Finish the parcel with a short, hot blast on the Big Green Egg for the char and smoke the traditional method actually delivers.
- Dehydrate and grind a portion of the aromatic herbs into a finishing dust in the spice grinder, dusted over the fish the moment the leaf is opened at table, so the aroma the flamed leaf itself contributes is not diluted by the elevation's own precision.