Purtumute

Beans and hulled maize cooked apart because they take different times, then brought together with raw coriander.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 300 g dried beans, canary or black
• 300 g mote, hulled maize
• 1 large bunch coriander
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tablespoon ají amarillo paste, as on its own page
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• salt and black pepper

Method

1. THE BEANS AND THE WHEAT ARE COOKED SEPARATELY, in two pans, and only brought together at the end. Mote takes two hours or more and beans take one; cooked in the same pot the beans burst and go to mush long before the maize is chewable, and the dish depends on both holding their shape. Two pans, two timings, one bowl. This is also the whole difference from the tacu-tacu on this site, which takes rice and beans already cooked and presses them into a crust: nothing here is pressed and nothing is fried together.
2. BOTH ARE SOAKED OVERNIGHT, SEPARATELY. Mote is bone-hard and twelve hours is the minimum; beans need it too. Unsoaked mote will not soften in any reasonable time.
3. THE CORIANDER IS BLENDED RAW AND STIRRED IN AT THE END, as on the aguadito page here, for the same reason: cooked, it goes grey-khaki and tastes flat, and the green is most of what this dish looks like.
4. THE BEAN LIQUID IS KEPT AND USED. It is starchy and savoury and is what loosens the finished bowl. The mote water is thrown away -- it is cloudy and tastes of nothing.
5. IT IS SEASONED HARD AT THE END. Beans and maize are both bland and take a great deal of salt; under-seasoned, this is the dullest thing in the collection.
6. AND IT IS THICK, somewhere between a stew and a side dish, served in a bowl with a spoon.
7. Beans and mote soaked SEPARATELY in cold water OVERNIGHT, at least 12 hours.
8. The mote drained, covered with fresh water, and simmered 2 HOURS to 2 hours 30 minutes until tender and chewy. Drained and the water thrown away.
9. The beans drained, covered with fresh water, and simmered 1 HOUR until tender but whole. Drained, and the COOKING LIQUID KEPT.
10. The oil heated in a wide pan. The onion cooked 8 minutes, the garlic 1 minute.
11. The ají amarillo paste made as on its own page and the cumin added and fried 3 minutes.
12. The beans and mote added with a ladleful of the reserved bean liquid, and cooked 10 minutes so they take up the seasoning. More liquid added if it tightens.
13. The coriander blended with a little bean liquid until smooth and bright green.
14. THE PAN OFF THE HEAT and the coriander purée stirred through.
15. Tasted and salted generously, with plenty of pepper. Served warm.

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