Healthy Stew (Beef, chicken or veggie)

A really easy, tasty and healthy food is our stew. It's up to you using beef, chicken or any veggie option. Anyway you are going to enjoy this dish. If you see other Peruvian recipes note that always frying onions and garlics is mandatory. This is common in traditional Peruvian Cuisine. Our alternative is healthy so we avoid this process as needed. Anyway we are going to fry but we discover base dressing doesn't need to be fried and as a matter of fact withour frying it is much tasty. Discover it by yourself. You do not loose flavour and in return you have health.
You can serve this dish alone, with rice and/or a fresh green salad (just tomato, lettuce, lemon, olive oil. balsamic vinager, salt and pepper).
This is for a family of six persons.
Ingredients you will need:
4 tomatoes, cutted in 4 pcs each one
4 garlic cloves chopped, the smaller you can.
1/2 teaspoon cummin
2 carrots chopped, thin rounded circles are OK.
1 turnip in pieces, when cooked is gpoing to be blended.
2 branches of celery chopped
2 bell pepper (doesn't matter the color), 1 chopped at julliene the other in 4-6 pcs clean
1/2 onion medium size chopped
1 apple (red or Winter or Washington) peeled
2 bay leaves
4 golden potatoes, peeled
1 cup green peas
1 cup corn kernels
salt and pepper to taste
3/4 cup of raisins
1/2 cup pecans or cashews or peanuts or sunflowers, whatever nut you like,grounded
3 table spoon of extra virgin olive oil

As you can have beef, chicken or a veggie option, the cooking process depends on the option choose. Mainly timing and when and how you add this part.
If using beef, the less fat it has would be better. If using chicken, choose skinless, boneless breast. For this both type one pound should be enough.
For the veggie option you can use firm toffu or veggie patties, your favorite brand should be fine.

Preparation

In a pot put the garlic, onion, cummin, salt, pepper, bay leaves, potatoes, turnip, apples, tomatoes and chopped bell pepper with 1 1/2 cups of water.
Put temperature control in "HIGH"
Add the beef or chicken. Note that for the veggie option you don't need to add now.
When boiling set to MEDIUM and leave boiling for 5 to 8 minutes.
Then take out turnip, tomatoes and apples. Blend these ingredients and return to the pot.
Keep cooking until meat is smooth.
Add carrots, bell pepper (chopped at julienne), celery, green peas, corn, raisins and nuts (your choice).
Veggie option must add now the choice chosen. Keep cooking in "MEDIUM LOW" for 5 - 8 minutes. Test the flavor if salt is OK go ahead otherwise add salt and or pepper. Potatoes should be cooked and soft. That's the best test to know if stew is ready.
Before serving add the olive oil and mix with a kitchen wooden spoon.

Serve with rice and salad.

This is a deliciuos but healthy and very simple food. It depends on the meat you are using to estimate time. The veggie option can be ready in about 30 minutes.

Give me your comments.

Bon Apettit

Monday, Beans for today. Very simple but a little different from american way.

Hi Friends,
For today we will have beans with rice. Si simple but very nutritive and delicious. It's an excellent source of iron and we know what iron means for kids. We will also have onion salad and a green salad. You might add a soft boiled egg. It's up to you adding fried egg.
If you search the web for Peruvian style beans, you will find that always frying is required. However as we tol at the start point we avoid this process and can asure you the good taste and healthy this dish is anyway.
Well, we will cook for 6 servings.
Ingredients
2 cups beans soaked the day before
2 cups of white rice long grain (you can use brown rice and it is more nutritious)
2 bay leaves
1/2 onion medium size
1/2 red bell pepper cut in two or three pieces
6 garlic cloves (4 for beans and 2 for the rice)
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon powder pepper

Salad
1 red onion julienne cut
1 lettuce
1 tomato
1 avocado
1 lemon
salt, pepper, balsamic vinager and olive oil.

Preparation:
In a pot put the beans and bay leaves with 5 cups of water, "HIGH" temperature.
Add 4 garlic cloves, the onion and bell pepper.
When water is boiling remove garlic cloves, the onion and bell pepper.
Set temperature to "MEDIUM"
Blend garlic cloves, the onion and bell pepper.
Time for cooking beans depends on many factors as quality/type of beans and time soaked. However it can take 30 minutes to 1 hour or more. Be alert and taste beans, when are soft enough they are ready.
When beans are cooked add the blended, salt, cumin and powder pepper. If water is low add 1 cup.
Cook MEDIUM LOW for about 10-15 minutes. Move the beans with a kitchen wood spoon to homogenize the mix.
Beans are ready. To serve sprinkle generously with Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

The white rice is simple. If you have a rice cooker you can proceed with it. If you want experience our white rice, simple do this:
Two cups of white rice + 2 cups of water.
2 garlic cloves grounded
salt, 1 teaspoon
Put garlic with a little of water on the pot at HIGH Temperature.
Add rice and water. Close the pot.
When water boils set temperature to LOW
Keep cooking rice for 30-45 minutes. Taste rice.

Salad
Red Onion, soak onion for at less 1 hour. Rinse and add salt, powder pepper, balsamic vinager, lemon juice and olive oil.

Green Salad
Slice tomatoes, avocado and lettuce
Add salt, powder pepper, balsamic vinager, lemon juice and olive oil just before serving.

Verypopular in Peru is tacu tacu. This dish is made with beans and rice leftover. Put in a pan half red onion chopped and when is brown add beans, rice and eggs. Mix and cook until eggs are wll cooked. Add olive oil and is ready to enjoy your next day breakfast.
It's also usual that Peru Cuisine consider pork and or bacon in many types to add. You can do that to and we will not judge you. You might add this raw at the start point with the beans. You can asure is tasty but understand that it is not so healthy.

Enjoy this dish and tell us how did you find.
Again fell free to make any question and to share with your friends.


Bon Apettit

Gustavo and Charo

The Green Rice... of Peru...

Hi Friends,


Today we had for dinner a special entree from Peru. Green Rice is something special. In Peru rice is something essential in daily diet. We love rice and we know a lot of ways to make it a delicious food. It's the perfect complement for almost all of our entrees. So if you go to Peru and go to a folk restaurant, each entree of the Menu has the rice by default. Don't be surprise for that but I think Peruvians are rice eaters in its most.


What I'm going to share now is the green rice. The typical dish is "Arroz con Pato" (Rice with duck literally). But as our family tend to veggie we replace duck (or chicken) with mushrooms. So I'm going to explain how you can make the dish with any of these ingredients. Finally is up to you using duck, chicken or mushrooms. But today we had a deliciuos Green Rice with Mushrooms.

The difference you will find in our recipe for this dish is the process of cooking. As I established at the beginning we will be cooking in a healthy way so we will avoid frying. And rice in Peruvian style is normally a fact of frying dressing. But here is our point, you do not need to fry to get a delicious flavour. Don't believe us? so try and test by yourself.


Ingredients (for 8 servings)


4 cups of white rice long grain


3 onion (1 chopped for the rice and the other two julienne cut for salad)


6 garlic cloves (4 to use in rice preparation and 2 for the mushrooms or bird)


1 bundle of cilantro


1 Green Bell Pepper (1/2 will be blended and half chopped


1 teaspoon cummin


1/2 teaspoon powder black or white pepper


1 teaspoon powder parsley


4 cups of dark beer


2 cups of water


1 1/2 cup of corn kernel


1 1/2 green peas


1 pound of white mushrooms








Preparation

In your regular pot put one chopped onion. When it becomes brown add cumin, pepper, salt and parsley. Add also the corn and the green peas.

Blend the cilantro leaves, half green bell pepper, 4 garlic cloves with one cup of water. Rinse the blender with the other cup of water . Add this to the pot.

Add the rice and the beer to the pot. Mix all in the pot with a wood spoon. Close the pot.

Put the temperature control to "HIGH" until water begins boiling. When is boiling turn temperature to "LOW". Due stoves are not the same, waiting time is normally about 30 - 40 minutes. You should pay atention looking how is the rice and test if it is well cooked.

Mushrooms, (or duck or chicken)

Marinated mushrooms with grounded garlic, cumin, salt, powder pepper and lemon juice (2 lemon).

Put in a pan and slightly roast the mushrooms. Add the mushrooms when rice is ready, mixing with a wood spoon. Add 4 tablespoon of Extra Virgin Olive Oil to the rice and you are ready.

See, you did not need to fry anythinh but you still have the good fat from olive oil. Great.

The onio salad is simple. Just soak onions with salt and water to reduce the strong flavour it normally has. 45 minutes might be enough. Marinate onions with lemon juive, salt, balsamic vinager and olive oil. See the picture at the start of the page, you can add avocado pieces. I'm sure that you are going to enjot very much this recipe. Then you can share with your friends.

Now Bon Apettit,

Gustavo and Charo

A season fruit makes "Palta Rellena" for today

Hi Friends,

One fruit we miss very much here in the US is avocado. We can find in the stores but the price is not affordable as it is in Peru. However sometimes we find on sale so we can have at our table this deliciuos and nutritive food.

"Palta Rellena" is the spanish name. In English would be something like Stuffed Avocado.

It's very easy to make and also has many variants. Here is it:

The core of the dish is Avocado. Medium or Large size are good for this recipe.

The number of servings for this recipe is in a direct relation to the number of guests you have.

Half avocado per serving.

Now we are going to the Stuff. As in our home some are veggie in a way, we decide to make a veggie stuff. As we mention before there are variants. We can make the stuff based on chicken, crab, schrimps, tuna or simple veggie.

The main part of the stuff is the mayonaisse. There is no comparison between a home made mayonaisse and a comercial brand. So we will focus in make a good mayonaisse.

Ingredients:
2 pasteurized eggs
1 cup extra virgin Spanish olive oil (approximately, you can also use other vegetable oil, canola, soy or corn for example)
1 key lemon juice

1 tablespoon of mustard

1 clove garlic (optional and makes very tasty but some people prefer without it)
salt to taste (approximately 1/2 tsp)
Preparation:
This mayonnaise recipe makes about 1 cup.
We recommend that you use pasteurized eggs. The pasteurization process destroys bacteria that may be present, like salmonella by heating the eggs for a period of time to destroy the bacteria, but does not cook them. You must still refrigerate the mayonnaise and any dish you make with it to prevent contamination.
Blender or Mixer Needed: A small “stick blender” or “stick mixer” will give you the best results for this recipe. With a stick blender, you can make the mayonnaise right in a 2-cup measuring cup!
Crack the eggs into the blender . Add the mustard, juice lemon, garlic clove and salt. Start blending . Now, slowly drizzle the olive oil into the eggs and watch as the mixture magically turns into mayonnaise. Don’t lift the beaters or blenders. Keep them at the bottom until the bottom of the mixture starts to really thicken and turn to mayonnaise. Once the bottom half of the mixture has turned to mayonnaise, you may lift up the mixer to finish mixing in the oil at the top.Now you are finished! You have real home made mayonaisse.

The veggie stuffed suggested is composed by a chopped mix of carrot, potato, beet, green peas and corn kernels. Add the mayonaisse to this mix and you have now the stuffed. Fill each avocado half with this mix and decorate.

For decoration purposes you can use lettuce leaves as a base and at the top of the stuff a slice of boiled egg with a little point of ketchup or a little piece of red bell pepper.

In case you decide to use the other stuffed here are hoe they are:

Chicken: Boiled skinless and boneless breast. Half of a breast is enough if you are making up to 5-6 servings. Once boiled crumple the breast and mix with fresh chopped celery, crushed pecans (might be cashews, wallnuts or other nuts) and a few of green peas and chopped red bell pepper. Add the mayonaisse and you have your stuff rerady to fill each avocado half.

Instead of chicken you can use pre cooked crab meat, schrimps or tuna. In this case I suggest adding 1 lemon juice to to this and proceed the same as is explained for the chicken.

Don't forget to make any question or comment about this deliciuos dish.

Bon Apettit,

Gus and Charo

New Year, new style for sharing what we love

This is a new year and as it is we would like to do something diferent in our life. We would like to share with our friends and the friends of our friends some knowledge we have been accumulating over the years of our marriage. Without any doubt we have a passion. And we develop our passion for us and for our family.

From today and for the rest of this year we would like to give each other a little piece of our passion. Charo and I are Cuisine fans and also as we like flavour we pay special attention on the healthy style of cooking. This is something of added value we can give.

Peruvian Cuisine is a delicious gourmet experience but healthy aspects are other issue.

We want everybody enjoy Peruvian dishes without loosing health. At less we are going to make the attempt in this direction. May be sometimes this would be imposible to afford but we will make trying to make the less against our health.

What we are going to share through this BLOG is what we are currently making in our home. We are parents of four wonderful kids each one with their likes.

This is the first day of the year. As we were last night with wonderful friends receiving 2010 Year sharing a typical Peruvian dish we decide begining this BLOG with the dish shared there.

It was "Papa a la Huancaina". Boiled potatoes covered with a special cream based on Peruvian yellow chilli pepper, cheese, garlic, onion, cracker, olive oil and a little of milk. The milk is optional and depends on the cheese used.

All of you are wellcome to test this dish. I'm going to explain in detail what original ingredients can been replace and of course which alternatives are available in the market.

The original dish is made with a typical Pewruvian yellow potato. As we cann't find locally let's use the yukon golden potato.

The Peruvian yellow hot chilli pepper can be found at Plaza Latina (Shoreline). But we are so far from there that doesn't make sense to get this. Instead of this we can use 1 jalapenho (the Mexican type we found in all food stores) or a half of habanero pepper. Be careful because habanero is very power so if you don't like your food hot, avoid it and use only yellow bell pepper.

The cheese. In Peru we use the fresh type which is very good. The closest we find here is a Mexican type named Panela. If you want a cheaper option it would be the Couttage Cheese.

As the other ingredients are standard let's go now to our business.

Ingredients ( up to 8 servings )

5 medium size Yukon Golden Potato, boiled.

1 Peruvian yellow hot chilli pepper OR 1 jalapenho pepper or 1/2 habanero pepper

1 yellow bell pepper (if you decide not putting hot add one more)

1/2 onion medium size

2-3 garlic cloves (it depends on size of cloves)

25 gr pecans OR cashews roasted unsalted

250 gr fresh cheese OR 400 grs couttage cheese

1/2 cup milk, if using couttage cheese you can avoid milk or use only 1/4 cup

8 pcs soda crackers unsalted

1/4 cup olive oil

Salt

2 boiled eggs cutted in halves (for final decoration, see the picture, we recomend 1/4 per serving)

16 kalamata olives (for decoration, see the picture 2 per serving)

Lettuce leaves as bases for 8 dishes (see the picture)

Preparation.

The cream.

Open peppers and put away the core (the part with the seeds). Cut onion in 8 pieces, garlic in halves and pepers in three pieces.

Put in a pan with a thin layer of water (less that 1/2 inch) peppers, garlic and onion cutted in pieces so they can fit inside the blender. They are going to be roasted. Let the mix stay 2 minutes since the water begins boiling. Do not let the pan dries and if it does add small quantity of water.

Put in the blender the boiled components, blend adding the pecans, cheese, milk oil and crackers.

Add 1 teaspoon of salt and taste the flavour. If you think it needs more add, but slightly.

Blend until you get a cream not so liquid not so thick.

When the cream is ready it's almost ready.

This is an appetizer, so take an appetizer dish and lay down two or three pieces of lettuce leaves. Then add potato slices three or four is OK. The potato slices can be up 1 inch thickness.

Cover the potatoes with the cream.

As decoration add 1/4 boiled egg and 1 kalamata olive (see the picture).

You can add parsley powder aside the dish to improve looking.

I would like very much receiving any comment about this dish.

Feel free to share with all your friends and they are also wellcome with any questions.

Have a good day and tomorrow we will send another Peruvian Recipe.

Bon Appetit!!!

Gus & Charo