COMFORT FOOD: RECIPES FROM THE FIELD

We wanted to share these recipes from the field to spread the love with some comfort food.

Izzy Arrendell shares a recipe for Kopiak from our Mekong Semester. Daniela Harvey and Adam Marcelo, Andes and Amazon students, chose cooking as their Independent Study Project (ISP) and shared weekly recipes on the Yak Board. A few of which are listed below.

Kopiak

As we continue our journey through China, I have been spending time reflecting on our time in Laos. Thinking back to things that made me love Laos so much. There is too much for me to put in one yak post. So instead I will share something small but valuable during the time I spent in Laos. My host mom taught me how to make Kopiak noodles during our homestay. I became addicted to this noodle soup and sometimes ate it twice a day. There are no measurements so just add ingredients to your preference. You can make it vegetarian if you want or add a different kind of meat than beef. Whatever floats your boat. I hope you enjoy this dish as much as I do. – Izzy

Cook time: 15 min or so

Ingredients:

• Water
• Ground Beef
• Rice Noodles
• Cilantro
• Soy Sauce
• Bullion (Cubes or powder)
• Lime
• Fish sauce

Instructions:

1. Boil Water
2. Add bullion, soy and fish sauce (go light on the sauce you can add more later)
3. Chop and add beef (in bite-sized pieces) to boiling water
4. When froth forms on the top of water, add noodles and continuously stir so water doesn’t boil over
5. Add extra seasonings to preference
6. Let cook till meat is cooked through (no pink)
7. Add cilantro plate and serve with a lime.

*chili sauce goes really well with this dish*

Ceviche and Causa

“Today we started our ISP’s and mine is cooking. Today we made Ceviche and Causa. Adam is writing about Ceviche and I’m writing about Causa. I am vegetarian so I’m writing the vegetarian version. You can put anything in as a filling, what matters is the potato bit. This is for one person.” – Daniela

Ingredients:

• Filling bit (Shrimp, Chicken, Vegetarian, whatever)
• 3 Potatoes (Yellow, boiled and peeled) for 4 people it’ll be 1 kilo
• 3 Tbsp Aji Amarillo (Yellow chile pepper)
• 1 Lime (to taste)
• 1 12 tsp Salt (to taste)
• 12 tsp Black Pepper (to taste)
• 12 Avocado
• 1 tsp Mayo (to taste)
• 1 Tomato

Instructions: 

1. Take the potatoes and mash it
2. Add salt, pepper, and aji amarillo
3. Mix until very yellow
4. Add lime and oil
5. Peel tomato and cut into 4 slices (like apple slices) and cut out the seeds and guts
6. Peel Avocado and cut into thin slices, from top to bottom
7. Take your filling and cut it into little squares. Add salt, black pepper, mayo and mix
8. Oil the mold
9. Layer your potato, tomato (leave some for garnish), avocado (leave some for garnish), and your filling and top with more potato. The layering doesn’t matter, it just needs to start and end with potato. Also if you don’t have a mold you can use a bowl or a cake tin, it doesn’t matter.

Ceviche

“For Ceviche the best types of fish to use are whitefish and the worst type is tuna. Salmon can also work but it has a very strong taste. So here is Trucha Ceviche. I hope you all enjoy. 🙂” – Adam

Ingredients:

• 1 piece of Trucha
• 2 Lemons
• 12 tsp Salt
• 14 tsp Pepper
• 1 Chile Pepper (small)
• 14 tsp Garlic
• 14 tsp Ginger
• 5 leaves Cilantro

Instructions:

1. Take your piece of fish and cut it into small squares. After place the pieces of fish in a large bowl
2. Get your onion, cut it in half, and take out the heart of each one. After cut the onions into small slices
3. After cutting onions, put in water while you begin to cut the other vegetables
4. Take your chile pepper and cut the tips off. After filet it and cut the two slices into small squares. Add to large bowl and mix well
5. Mince cilantro and add to large bowl. Mix well
6. Add salt. pepper, and garlic to large bowl. Mix well
7. Grate the ginger and add the juice to large bowl. Mix well
8. Cut two lemons in half and juice them in large bowl. Mix well
9. Finally, add onion that has been soaking in water to large bowl
10. Add to plate and enjoy.
11. Helpful garnish: Eat your ceviche with plantain chips.

Picarones

“This is my last recipe for this trip it is for Picarones. They are Peruvian doughnuts. So good. Very fried. You can serve them with maple syrup or any sauce like that. It does take two days.” – Daniela

Day 1:

Ingredients:

• 1 kilo of sweet potato
• 1 kilo of pumpkin
• Water
• 2 grams anis
• 1 tsp of yeast
• 1 kilo flour
• 1 egg
• 1 cup of anise tea

Instructions:

1. Gut the pumpkin (deseed it get the weird stringy bits out), take the rind off, and cut into big chunks
2. Peel and slice the sweet potato
3. Put everything into a big pot and add 1 liter of water
4. Add anise and leave to boil
5. Once all the water is dissolved mash everything
6. Slowly add flour and mix with your hand, add the egg and tea water (Very mushy and I would suggest cutting your nails first too) Keep mixing with your hand until it makes a batter
7. Dissolve the yeast in 1/2 cup of warm water, pour it into the pot with the batter and mix
8. Cover it and let it rise overnight.
9. Helpful tip: for every 1 kilo of flour use 1 egg

Day 2:

Ingredients:

You need very little for day two.

• The batter from yesterday
• Oil
• Water
• A stick
• Whatever topping you want

Instructions:

1. Heat oil to fry.
2. Get your fingers wet so the batter doesn’t stick to your hands
3. Make a ball of batter into your hands and put a hole in the middle to make a doughnut shape
4. Gently place the doughnut into the hot oil and take your stick and poke it in the hole and swirl the doughnut and until the hole becomes round and doesn’t close
5. When it starts to become golden, flip
6. Take out the doughnut and place it on a paper towel to get extra oil off
7. Drizzle whatever sauce you have over the doughnut and eat.

Capchi de Avas

Ingredients:

• 5 yellow potatoes
• 100g lima/fava beans
• 1/2 onion
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1 stem/branch of huacatay or oregano if you can’t find huacatay
• Oil
• 1/2 tbsp crushed garlic
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup water
• 1 large ostra mushroom
• 500ml milk
• 1/4 cup cumin
• grated parm

Instructions:

1. To start you need to wash and peel your potatoes and cut them in half
2. Chop your onion into little squares
3. Heat oil in a pan and add onion and garlic
4. Once they’re almost brown add salt and pepper
5. Once they are fully browned add the potatoes and water and leave to boil
6. When it comes to a boil cover the pot
7. Wash your beans and add to the pot
8. Cut mushroom into large squares and add to pot
9. If your potatoes are taking too long to cook now would be a good time to cut them in smaller pieces to help them cook faster
10. Add milk and some salt
11. Mince your huacatay and add to pot
12. Leave the pot to reduce
13. Add cumin and salt if needed
14. Sprinkle parm on top and eat.

“This recipe was so good and easy to make although it was a bit time-consuming. Totally worth it though. Today I went back and got the amounts for masamora de quinoa and apple compote that I didn’t have yesterday.” – Daniela

For the masamora you need: 2 sticks of cinnamon, 200g of quinoa, 1 star anis, 400 ml water (double the amount of quinoa), 400g condensed milk, 400g normal milk, 3 tbsp sugar, 2 tbsp corn starch

For the compote you need: 2 peeled granny smith apples (it can be any type of apple really), 1/2 cup water, 1 stick of cinnamon (plus some ground cinnamon to sprinkle on top, 1 star anis, and 1 cup of sugar.

Espagettis a la Huancaina

I once again have a new recipie to share to Adam and my mass following of Peruvian cooking enthusiasts. We can’t let our fans down. I am writing about Espagettis a la Huancaina. It serves 1-2 people. I personally thought the sauce was delicious as it had an aroma of different and unique flavors. The fried mushroom I also added to the dish was spectacular as it was fried to perfection. I hope you enjoy this classic Peruvian pasta. – Daniela

Ingredients:

• Linguini 1/8 kilo
• Aji (the same hot pepper things we’ve been talking about for the past two weeks) 4
• Onion 1/2
• Oil 1 TBSP
• Salt 1 tsp (plus a little more for the mushroom)
• Cheese (Andean salty cheese, queso fresco would probably work) 20 grams
• Milk 1/4 cup
• Black pepper 1/4 tsp (plus a little more for the mushroom)
• Mushroom

Instructions: 

1. Cook linguini
2. Go to my post where I describe how to make papa a la huancaina and follow those instructions, only the sauce part
3. Take your huancaina sauce and put it back into the skillet you used to cook the onion and peppers
4. Put your cooked and drained pasta into the pan with the sauce and toss it. You might need to re-heat a bit
5. Add salt and pepper to your mushrooms
6. Egg and bread your mushrooms and then fry them
7. When your pasta is mixed and the desired temperature put it on a plate
8. Put your mushrooms on the plate on top of the pasta and enjoy
9. Adam did shrimp instead of mushroom but you get the idea.

We hope you enjoy!

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