Huatia

Potatoes baked inside a dome of dried earth clods which is fired and then collapsed onto them.

Not vegetarian — contains queso fresco whose rennet the source does not name.

Ingredients

• 4 kg potatoes, unpeeled, all about the same size
• 2 kg broad beans in the pod, optional
• dry clay clods or sods of earth, enough to build a dome about 50 cm across
• dry straw, brush and firewood
• queso fresco, to serve
• uchucuta or a huacatay and ají sauce, to serve
• coarse salt

Method

1. THE OVEN IS BUILT FROM CLODS AND THEN COLLAPSED ONTO THE FOOD. That is the whole difference from the pachamanca on this site, which heats stones in a pit and layers food between them. Here a dome is built out of dried clods of earth, like a small igloo with a mouth; a fire is burned INSIDE it until the clods are too hot to approach; the embers are raked out, the potatoes go in, and the dome is then knocked in on top of them and buried. The oven becomes the lid.
2. THE CLODS MUST BE DRY AND CLAYEY. Cut from a dry field, left in the sun if there is any doubt. A damp clod crumbles when it heats and the dome falls in while the fire is still burning, which means starting again.
3. THE DOME IS BUILT WITH THE BIGGEST CLODS AT THE BOTTOM and a mouth left at one side for the fire and the draught. It wants to be about knee high and stable enough to push against.
4. IT IS FIRED FOR AN HOUR, until the inside faces of the clods are grey and ashy and the dome is radiating heat you cannot hold a hand near. Underfired, there is not enough stored heat in the earth to cook four kilos of potato.
5. THE POTATOES GO IN FAST AND ALL AT ONCE. Embers raked out, potatoes tipped in onto the hot floor, and the dome pushed in on top within a minute or two. Every second it stands open is heat gone.
6. AND IT IS BURIED AND LEFT FORTY MINUTES. Earth shovelled over the collapsed dome so no steam escapes. Dug out any earlier and the middle of the heap is hard; much later and the outside is dry.
7. POTATOES ALL THE SAME SIZE, because there is no way to take some out early. Sort them before they go in and keep the odd large one for something else.
8. Potatoes washed and sorted for size. Nothing is peeled and nothing is cut.
9. A dome built from dry clods about 50 cm across, biggest at the base, with a mouth left at one side.
10. A fire of straw, brush and wood lit inside it and fed 1 HOUR, until the clods are ash-grey inside and radiating hard.
11. The embers and ash raked out through the mouth.
12. The potatoes tipped straight in onto the hot floor, with the broad beans on top if using.
13. THE DOME PUSHED IN on top of them with a spade, so the hot clods land on the food.
14. Earth shovelled over the whole heap and patted down.
15. LEFT 40 MINUTES.
16. Dug out, the potatoes brushed off, and eaten hot from the earth with coarse salt, queso fresco and uchucuta. Any that are under-done go back under the hot clods for 10 minutes.

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