Potato a la huancaína recipe

Clarification: Recipe originally published on May 28, 2012 in the blog “Cocina paso a paso”.

This is one of the recipes that Peruvians keep and pay some of the greatest tributes. A quick entry. Simple and Peruvian. Recipe that like others, has one and a thousand variants. The one that I present below is one of the many ways that there are to prepare it. It is traditionally eaten with boiled potatoes, although currently the combination with long pasta such as spaghetti or fettuccine accompanied by lomo saltado is simply spectacular.

You can use it with what provokes you the most, experiment and create your own combination. This sauce belongs to you, it is a sauce as Peruvian as the potato, and if it comes from Huancayo as many suggest, even better. Regarding the name, others affirm that it is due to the hands of Huancas women who prepared the recipe for workers in the construction of the Central Railroad of Peru. Be that as it may, it is the beloved Huancaína sauce that we all love and enjoy. Here’s how to prepare it:

Ingredients:

FOR THE SAUCE

• 3 yellow peppers
• 250 grams of fresh or serrano cheese
• ½ cup evaporated milk
• 2 tablespoons oil
• Shall
• Pepper
• 2 cloves of garlic
• ½ onion (optional)

TO ACCOMPANY

• 8 yellow potatoes (or 4 white potatoes)
• 2 hard-boiled eggs
• 2 olives
• Lettuce leaves

preparation:

How to join the ingredients? They traditionally made it in fulling mill. Currently you can use a blender, do you want your sauce to have a smoky aroma? Then in a pan, place garlic and onion and add the yellow pepper (without seeds or placenta if you don’t want it to be very hot, if you want it with its spicy touch more … You add placenta – which is the white part that holds the seeds of the pepper ).

Brown them on both sides for about a minute. Place this mixture in the blender and add the cheese and evaporated milk. A little bit of salt and a little bit of pepper will give it the balance of flavor. At this point there are people who decide to add a few soda crackers, other people add lemon drops, it’s a matter of taste …

TIPS

• The most traditional way to serve it is with potato slices on a lettuce leaf and top with the sauce. Hard-boiled eggs, halved and olives, quartered (half of a half).
• If you are going to put this sauce as a snack in a meeting, boil cocktail potatoes (the little ones) very well washed and once boiled, put them on a plate. They are served with skin (peel) with embedded toothpicks. In another container you put the sauce. There you have a quick and easy snack.
• Another great combination is with quail eggs instead of potatoes.
• Be careful with the amount of milk you add to the sauce, because if you add too much it could become watery. It is better to enjoy it with a point of thickness.

Good luck with this sauce!