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Recipe: Choritos a la chalaca (Peruvian mussels with salsa)
Choritos a la chalaca is a typical Peruvian appetizer/bar food. “Choros” = mussels (it also means thieves in slang) and “chalaca” is a type of salsa similar to pico de gallo. Chalaco or chalaca is a person (male or female) from the port of Callao, where I was born. The main difference between “salsa chalaca” and pico de gallo is that the former includes corn and rocoto, a super spicy Peruvian chilli. Peruvian corn and rocoto are hard to find in Sydney, so I used sweetcorn and birds eye chilli. The best way of eating choritos a la chalaca is to grab the shell by the tip and drop the…
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Recipe: Low sugar pisco sour
Today is pisco sour day. The Peruvian national cocktail is celebrated on the first Saturday in February every year since 2005. I published my standard recipe a couple of years ago. I mentioned in passing that you could use water and stevia instead of syrup but did not give any quantities. This year I decided to make myself a low sugar pisco sour using Raw Earth stevia & monk fruit sweetener. A few notes on ratios and ingredients, rehashed from the original article: I like my pisco sour made with the ratio 3:1:1:1 (pisco to egg white to syrup to lime juice). If this is too strong, try 2:1:1:1. If…
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What is lucuma (and how to pronounce it)
Lucuma (written lúcuma in Spanish) is an Andean fruit that grows in Peru, Ecuador and Chile. It has been around since before the Incas and it’s still widely consumed in the region. Listen to the correct pronunciation in this link. Lucuma is generally the size of an orange or grapefruit, although there are also smaller ones. The fruit has a thin green skin that splits open when ripe. The flesh is yellow-orange, sweet, firm and starchy. It has a few round medium-sized brown seeds. Culinary uses In Peru, the fruit can be found fresh (mainly during summer months), frozen and powdered (also known as “harina de lúcuma). The availability of…
