Cancha

Dried corn toasted in a covered pan and shaken constantly, which splits it open without popping it.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 300 g chulpe or maíz cancha, dried
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon fine salt

Method

1. IT IS TOASTED DRY IN A COVERED PAN AND SHAKEN CONSTANTLY. A heavy pan, a lid, barely any oil, and the pan moving the whole time for eight or ten minutes. The kernels swell, crack open and go golden and brittle without ever popping inside out. Left still for even thirty seconds, the ones touching the base burn black and their smell gets into the whole batch; without the lid, the ones that do crack jump out of the pan.
2. CHULPE CORN, NOT POPCORN, and this is the one thing with no substitute. Chulpe is a large flat starchy maize that splits and crisps; popcorn has a hard hull and a moist centre and will explode. Any Latin grocer has it as maíz cancha or maíz chulpe.
3. IT IS NOT SOAKED. Every instinct with dried corn says to soak it; here water is exactly what you are trying not to have, because steam inside a kernel is what makes it pop rather than split.
4. THE OIL IS A SMEAR AND NOT A FRY. Two tablespoons for three hundred grams, enough to carry the heat and the salt. Deep-fried, it is greasy and the inside stays soft.
5. AND IT IS SALTED THE MOMENT IT LEAVES THE PAN, while the surface still has a trace of oil on it. Salted cold, the salt falls to the bottom of the bowl.
6. THEY WILL NOT ALL CRACK and that is normal. Some stay whole and hard and are eaten as they are; this is not a fault to cook out, and chasing it burns the rest.
7. Corn picked over for stones and any blackened kernels.
8. The oil heated in a heavy pan with a tight lid over a medium heat.
9. The corn added in a single layer -- in two batches if the pan is small, since a double layer will not toast evenly.
10. THE LID ON and the pan SHAKEN CONSTANTLY, sliding it back and forth over the heat.
11. After 4 or 5 minutes the first kernels crack with a sharp sound.
12. Shaken on another 4 to 5 MINUTES, until most have split and gone deep gold. The lid lifted briefly to look rather than left off.
13. Tipped straight into a bowl and SALTED AT ONCE, tossed while the oil is still on them.
14. Cooled completely before storing, or the steam softens them. Keeps 2 weeks in a tin.
15. Served alongside ceviche as on its own page, tiradito, anticuchos, or on its own with beer.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Peru · All recipes