Ocopa

The same boiled potatoes as huancaína under a darker sauce built on huacatay, fried onion and toasted nuts.

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

Ingredients

For the sauce

• 2 tablespoons ají amarillo paste, as on its own page
• 1 large bunch huacatay, or mint with coriander
• 100 g roasted peanuts
• 2 onions, in thick wedges
• 4 cloves garlic, unpeeled
• 150 g queso fresco
• 150 ml evaporated milk
• 4 soda crackers
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• salt

To serve

• 1 kg waxy yellow potatoes
• 3 eggs, boiled 9 minutes
• black olives
• lettuce leaves

Method

1. THE HUACATAY AND THE FRIED ONION ARE WHAT MAKE IT NOT HUANCAINA. Those two things, and the toasted peanuts. The papa a la huancaina on this site is a raw blended sauce of aji, cheese and crackers, and it is yellow and mild; this one has its onion and garlic charred dry in a pan first, a whole bunch of black mint blended in, and peanuts for body -- so it comes out green-grey, darker, nuttier and much more pungent. Same potatoes underneath, different dish on top.
2. THE ONION AND GARLIC ARE CHARRED DRY, not softened in oil. A dry pan over a high heat until the wedges are blackened in patches and the garlic skins are scorched. That burnt edge is a flavour the raw sauce has no equivalent of, and sweating them gently gives a sauce that tastes of nothing much.
3. HUACATAY IS THE ONE INGREDIENT WITH NO GOOD SUBSTITUTE and the page should not pretend otherwise. It is Peruvian black mint and it tastes of mint, tarragon and marigold at once. Mint and coriander together get somewhere in the region and it is not the same sauce; frozen huacatay paste from a Latin shop is closer than anything fresh in a British supermarket.
4. THE PEANUTS ARE TOASTED AND SKINNED. Toasted in a dry pan until they smell nutty, then rubbed in a cloth to lose the papery skins, which otherwise stay as brown specks that will not blend out.
5. AND THE SAUCE IS BLENDED THICK AND THEN LET DOWN. Blend everything with only half the milk, see where it is, and add the rest a spoonful at a time. The nuts and crackers make this much easier to overshoot than the huancaina.
6. Potatoes boiled WHOLE in their skins 20 to 25 minutes, drained, peeled warm and cut into thick slices.
7. Eggs boiled 9 minutes, cooled and quartered.
8. Peanuts toasted in a dry pan 4 minutes, cooled and rubbed in a cloth to remove the skins.
9. The onion wedges and unpeeled garlic charred in the same dry pan over a high heat 6 to 8 minutes, turned, until blackened in patches. The garlic peeled once cool.
10. The oil heated and the huacatay leaves wilted in it 30 seconds, which sets the colour.
11. Everything except half the milk blended: the ají amarillo paste made as on its own page, huacatay and its oil, peanuts, charred onion and garlic, cheese and crackers.
12. The remaining milk added a spoonful at a time until the sauce drops thickly from a spoon.
13. Tasted and salted.
14. The potato slices arranged on lettuce on a platter and the sauce poured over to cover.
15. Egg quarters and olives on top, served warm or at room temperature.

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