Recipe: Carapulcra (Peruvian pork and potato stew)

This is very weird. I have hated this dish for most of my life. My mum and aunties are so nice that they actually cooked a different dish for me whenever they made carapulcra. When I went to cooking school my friends really trusted my palate and made me test their version before presenting them to the instructor for marking. I knew they were really well made but I still hated them. Last year Alvaro, Gladys, Vicky and I went to a Peruvian festival and I tried their carapulcra. I liked it. A lot. I liked it so much that I bought a bag of papa seca (dried potatoes, the main ingredient in carapulcra) online.

Carapulcra is a dish that hails from Chincha, a town South of Lima that received a big African migration. In Chincha they make it with fresh potatoes but somehow when the dish arrived Lima (and became extremely popular) the dried potatoes took over. I guess it was someone from the highlands who adapted it, since drying potatoes is a common preservation method in the Andes.

Anyway, apart from the potatoes, the other main ingredients in this stew are pork and peanuts. It also has a couple of flavour enhancers added at the end of the cooking process: chocolate and port. I’ve heard some people in Chincha add in a Sublime (milk chocolate with peanuts) but I prefer using dark chocolate and peanuts instead.

Carapulcra

This is my version of a traditional dish from Chincha, in the South of Lima.

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Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr 40 minutes mins

Soaking time 8 hours hrs

Course Main Course

Cuisine Peruvian

Ingredients

  

• 500 g papa seca (dried potatoes) or regular potatoes (Tasmanian pink eye recommended)
• 1 tbsp lard or ghee
• 1 kg pork belly
• 1 large red onion
• 6 garlic cloves
• 100 g ají panca (Peruvian red chilli) or other red chilli paste
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 6 6 cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 2 litres chicken or pork broth
• salt and pepper
• 100 g peanuts
• 20 g dark chocolate (85% or higher recommended)
• 1/4 cup port

Instructions

 

• The night before: toast the papa seca in a dry pan for a few minutes until fragrant. Rinse and soak in a container with twice its volume of water overnight. Skip this step if you're using regular potatoes.
• If you're using regular potatoes, cut them in 1-cm cubes. Reserve in a bowl, covered with cold water.
• Cut the pork belly in bite-size pieces. Chop onion and mince garlic.
• Melt lard/ghee in a heavy-bottomed pot at high heat and sear the pork (be careful, it spits). Reserve.
• Lower the heat, let pot cool down a bit and add the onion, garlic and chilli paste. Cook for 10-15 minutes.
• Add cumin, cloves and cinnamon stick, stir. Add pork and drained potatoes, add 1/2 teaspoon salt and freshly ground pepper, mix well.
• Add broth, cover and cook for 1 hour.
• Grind peanuts in a food processor, blender or mortar and pestle. Grate chocolate. Add both to the pot.
• Add port, turn heat off, discard cinnamon stick and adjust seasoning.
• Serve with cauliflower rice.

Keyword papa seca, Peruvian cuisine, Peruvian food, pork, pork belly, potato, stew

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