Adventures in Peruvian Cooking

This week has been a very happy week for me, culinarily speaking. I found coconut milk and made a Thai red curry with ingredients smuggled from the US, I stumbled on a store that has natural goat's milk products and makes a delicious goat cheese, and discovered that craft beer has arrived in Peru after all, in the form of the Barranco Beer Company. On Sunday Jorge and I checked out the brewery for their Super Bowl party. Unfortunately, ESPN in South America switched all the commercials to local commercials! But that's what the internet is for, I guess. The beer was alright, not spectacular but a welcome change from the same old Pilsen and Cusqueña. The highlight, however, was the chili dogs. I convinced Jorge to try one, and he was hooked. I don't have a picture because we scarfed them down so fast!

They're just as serious about quantity as quality

So today, I decided to surprise him by whipping up some chili. Now, this would be a challenge for me under ordinary circumstances since I've never made chili before, but it's even more so here because it's no easy feat finding all the necessary ingredients in Peru. That means improvising! For one, there's no chili powder down here. I had most of the individual spices to make a batch of my own, but I was missing powdered garlic and cayenne pepper. Powdered garlic was easy to find at the supermarket (but the price, like the price of so many things here, made me cringe) and I bought a packet of what I thought was cayenne pepper. I have no idea what it is that I bought, but it has more of a smoky flavor and definitely no heat. Luckily, I had on hand a hot chili and so I sliced that up and dumped it in the pot with the rest of the ingredients. Problem solved. The corn down here is different, larger and not sweet, so I skipped that and added zucchini instead. Canned goods are pricey, so I skipped the black beans and just went with beef. Add some diced tomatoes, garlic and onion and voila! Dash of Italian herbs and we'll see what happens.

The finished product. Yummy!

Cooking American food, or any type of food that's not traditional Peruvian, can get expensive fast due to imported and specialty products. Ordinarily, I cook Peruvian-oriented dishes using what's fresh (and I make a mean estofado de pollo), but sometimes you just need a flavor break and a little piece of home. This week has been rather expensive, but I think it's worth it. I hope Jorge likes the chili!

Update: He liked it so much I don't know if we'll have much left for tomorrow!