I'm used to this mild aji amarillo cream sauce served over potato slices (Papa a la Huancaina), but here the sauce is tossed with linguine and served with either chicken or beef. I chose rotisserie chicken, which is very popular in Peru, and I chose leg and thigh over breast. Because this dish is Peruvian, it came with two slices of cooked and grilled potato anyway, though the sauce had not been poured over them. It was a good hearty dish served with green pepper sauce on the side.
Location: Peruvian Fuego, 1751 N Sunrise Way, #F1, Palm Springs, California. Date: September 8, 2023.
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In English this Peruvian hangover recipe would be called Tiger's Milk. It's fish ceviche marinated in lime juice with red onion, cilantro, and aji pepper. The dish is garnished with cancha and choclo corn kernels (cancha are small and crispy while choclo are large and soft). It's the addition of the corn, along with the yellow aji pepper, that makes leche de tigre Peruvian. This marinated raw fish dish is salty and sour with crunch from the small corn. It's served with hot sauce on the side. It's a refreshing dish on a hot day.
Location: Peruvian Fuego, 1751 N Sunrise Way, #F1, Palm Springs, California. Date: July 16, 2023. The menu calls this a cold lemony spiced mashed potato layered with avocado and topped with ceviche mixed with a touch of mayonnaise and garnished with choclo (large corn kernels). It came with red onion slices that provided crunch, and the choclo and marinated fish provided chew. There was acid from the marinade and heat from the red hot sauce that came on the side. The potato and avocado provided creaminess, and the marinade with the addition of some mayonnaise made for a tangy sauce that went well with the mashed potato. This was an excellent match of two Peruvian classics: mashed cold potato and marinated raw fish. This potato and fish dish has nothing in common with fish and chips, and it's a very refreshing dish on a warm day.
Location: Peruvian Fuego, 1751 N Sunrise Way #F1, Palm Springs, California. Date: October 8, 2022. As the name suggests, this Peruvian dish is for poorer folk who can't afford a lot of meat. They get a small cheap steak served with a fried egg to boost the protein. Since the workers need calories, this dish also comes with fried plantain, potato fries, and white rice. My pan seared steak was a little tough but flavorful, the plantain was sweet, and the fries were good, not too skinny. I didn't think I would eat much of the rice, but it was such a flavorful variety, cooked to perfection, that I ate it all.
Location: Peruvian Fuego, 1751 N Sunrise Way #F1, Palm Springs, California. Date: July 16, 2022. These are the best yuca fries I've ever had, and I know the secret: the yuca is boiled before being deep fried. I got seven thick cut wedges that were crispy on the outside and very soft and moist inside. They were served with three sauces: huancaina (creamy sauce with aji amarillo pepper), jalapeño, and Peruvian rocoto pepper. The sauces were spicy but not overly so. Unlike potato, these fries are very nutty in flavor. I've made my own yuca fries before, and they can be rather tough, but now I know what to do next time.
Location: Peruvian Fuego, 1751 N Sunrise Way, #F1, Palm Springs, California. Date: July 9, 2022. Tiradito is Peruvian style sashimi. It differs from ceviche in that the sauce or marinade is applied just before serving so that the pieces of fish fillet remain uncooked by the acid of the lemon or lime juice. The fish is truly raw, but the sauce gives it some good flavor. The version I had at Inka in Palm Springs had some twenty slices of raw white fish (probably red snapper), the aji amarillo sauce had the perfect balance of sour, salty, and spicy, and the two slices of sweet potato came with a surprise: they'd been cooked with cinnamon. The dish was garnished with marinated red onion slaw for crunch and some large corn kernels for starch. What you see in the pic is just half of the good stuff I got.
Location: Inka, 360 North Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs, California. Date: June 4, 2022. This simple appetizer consists of choclo (which is Peruvian corn on the cob), fresh white cheese, and two small unpeeled red potatoes. The large corn kernels are not sweet, and they practically fell off the cob. The dish came with a lemony hot sauce garnished with chopped green onion. This is street food in Latin America, and there are many versions of corn with cheese; however, it's a Peruvian thing to feel the need for some potato. Both the corn and the potato were steamed, and the cheese provided protein. Dipping everything into the hot sauce made this rustic dish quite tasty.
Location: Peruvian Fuego, 1751 N Sunrise Way, #F-1, Palm Springs, California. Date: April 2, 2022. These are Peruvian style mussels. They're marinated in lime juice with aji chile and topped with finely chopped red onion and tomato, and served on the half shell garnished with a choclo, which is a large cooked corn kernel, and a couple of canchas, which are small corn kernels fried crispy. There were nine meaty mussels on the half shell on top of a lettuce leaf. This dish, which is served cold, was fresh, a touch spicy (more hot sauce was served on the side), and there was crunch from the fried corn kernels. The cooked corn kernels looked like bay scallops, and they added just enough starch to the dish to make it a light lunch which was especially good with a beer. I spoke with the chef, asking him how come the mussels tasted so clean (as there's normally a little funk in mussel dishes). He told me that he uses New Zealand mussels because they are meaty, and he cleans them in house, removing the innards and any gritty sand. He said that's how his Mom did it in Callao, the seaport for Lima, though she used the local black mussels. I love little food stories like this, and I loved these mussels too. I'm going back for more very soon.
Location: Peruvian Fuego, 1751 N Sunrise Way #F1, Palm Springs, California. Date: February 19, 2022. This vegetarian appetizer dish from the beach city of Huanchaco in Peru features potatoes, which originated in Peru, and seaweed harvested in the Pacific off Huanchaco's popular beaches. I found a recipe for this dish in The Exotic Kitchens of Peru by Copeland Marks. I followed his recipe but left out the paprika, which Marks stated was for color, because I thought that the dark seaweed would contrast better with white uncolored potato. Marks indicated in the recipe that he would tell us more about the seaweed in the glossary, but that never happened. What I did was go to my local Oriental food store where I selected dried hijiki seaweed from Korea. The directions on the packet said to soak it in water for thirty minutes before using it in dishes. To make the dish, I sauteed some onion and garlic in olive oil and then added peeled and quartered boiled potatoes and a cup of the drained rehydrated seaweed. My seaweed selection turned out to be perfect visually as well as in texture and taste. The potatoes tasted like they came from the sea, and it's delicious!
Location: My Home in Desert Hot Springs, California. Date: October 31, 2021. This dish is a Peruvian fusion of causa, which is cold mashed potato flavored with aji amarillo, the well known yellow chili of Peru, and lomo saltado, the famous Peruvian dish of beef stew served over potato fries. The dish I had today was warm beef stew served over cold causa, a contrast in temperature that I found enjoyable. When I told the chef, he got all excited because it was this aspect of the dish that he really liked. The stew was tender beef slices served in gravy along with quartered tomatoes and half inch wide slices of red onion. It was garnished with fresh cilantro. The yellow chili in the potato added some spice, the onion added sweetness and crunch, there was sourness from the tomato, and savory goodness from the gravy. The dish came with a side of green and creamy hot sauce that provided extra heat and sourness. This was a worthy dish for my 65th birthday lunch.
Location: Peruvian Fuego, 1751 N Sunrise Way, Palm Springs, California. Date: September 18, 2021. |
AuthorChef Roland has been a legal resident of seven countries and has travelled in over thirty, documenting food along the way. He currently resides in the desert in Southern California. Categories
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