Cooking

Delicious, vegetarian dish of beans and potatoes, simmered in a spicy sauce of chili, egg, milk, and onion, and served with rice. This afternoon, for my final cooking lesson with Amigos, our amazing chef Ricardo (of tiradito de pescado and causa rellena fame) showed us how to cook up some kapchi de habas, another spicy dish local to the Cusco area. A great final addition to my Andean cooking repertoire, and another one that I'll have to make again sometime!

A gourmet dish of spicy mashed potatoes and shredded chicken, garnished with egg and vegetables, causa rellena makes for a great meal or afternoon snack. This afternoon, for my third weekly cooking lesson at Amigos, the acclaimed chef Ricardo (of tiradito de pescado fame) showed a small group of us how to prepare causa rellena. He did most of the cooking, we did most of the eating. Here's how you do it.

After the success of making lomo saltado in last Thursday's cooking class, I decided to come back for more this week. Tiradito de pescado is a delicious dish of raw fish, served cold with a chili and lemon paste sauce, and with sweet potato and corn. This week, not only did we have this gourmet cuisine to prepare; we also had a professional chef instructing us, a bigger kitchen to work with (Jesus's kitchen), and a bigger class. ¡Perfecto y muy Rico!

This afternoon, a class of us from Amigos were instructed by a professional chef in how to cook tiradito de pescado. Sumptuous gourmet dish of raw fish, delicate and decadent. Watch the video of the chef at work.

Delicious traditional Peruvian dish of chopped-up beef or lamb, fried potato chips, tomato, and some spices. Usually served with rice. This afternoon, Juan Carlos held a cooking class at the tiny kitchen at Amigos, and 5 of us cooked up and then ate some lomo saltado. It's really quite a simple dish, and it's very easy to make. I'll have to try cooking it up by myself sometime.

I don't know what it was that we put in our home-made pasta tonight that was bad. But whatever it was, it was real bad. Jack and myself cooked up some quick pasta napolitana at Loki tonight, using ingredients that we'd bought at the San Pedro market. Pasta, tomatoes, packet sauce, cheese, avocado, onion, spinach, etc. A few minutes after finishing it, I felt sick. Then, later, I vomited it all right back up. Then, I had diarrhoea for two days. Talk about food poisoning. Something from that market was deadly.

Tonight will be remembered as the great feast night of Tulum. Kyden, Steve, and myself decided to make it a boys' cooking night, and we whisked up an authentic Mexican dinner of tamales, BBQ chicken, and guacamole that was extremely delicious, and that was also of ample quantity for about half the hostel to dig in and have a bite.