A Journey into Food

Passport & Plate - Quinoa Risotto with Mushroom Yellow Pepper Sauce

Peru | Thursday, March 13, 2014 | 5 photos

Ingredients
1st part – Quinoa Base
½ cup of organic quinoa
½ White thinly diced onion
2 teaspoons of red panca pepper (paprika)
Salt
Pepper

2nd part – Mushroom Yellow Pepper Creamy Sauce
2 Peruvian yellow peppers thinly diced
¼ white onion thinly diced.
½ garlic
5 teaspoons of vegetable oil
12 mushrooms
1 cup of cream

3rd part
2 teaspoons of butter
Cubed Andean cheese

 

How to prepare this recipe
1st part
1) Rinse the quinoa with water.
2) Add the quinoa in a pot with boiling water. The proportion of quinoa to water is 1 to 3. Quinoa tends to absorb a lot of water so if it needs extra water just add. Make sure it is not too grained.
3) While the quinoa boils, heat up some oil on a pan. Throw the thinly diced onions on a medium temperature.
4) Put a pinch of salt and pepper.
5) Once the onions have a glazed transparent look put 2 teaspoons of red panca chili paste. Mix it for about 3 minutes until all the flavors are well mixed.
6) Toss the quinoa in the pan with the onions and paprika paste.
7) Evenly mix all the ingredients.
2nd Part
1) Put in a bowl the 2 Peruvian yellow peppers thinly diced, mix it with the diced onions and garlic. Pour 4 teaspoons of vegetable oil and mix.
Tip 1: Make sure you de-vein the yellow Peruvian pepper before dicing
Tip 2: Make this mixture the previous day so all the flavors are released. By simmering in oil the textures will also change and help with the preparation.
2) Put a generous amount of oil in a hot pan. Mushrooms tend to absorb a lot of oil so if you don´t put enough, it will leave the pan out burning.
3) Put salt and pepper and sauté.
4) After 4 minutes the mushrooms will be lightly cooked, pour the mixture (from the previous day) and mix it with the mushrooms. Sauté again and evenly cook all the ingredients.
5) Pour the cream on top of the ingredients and turn down the temperature. Otherwise, it will evaporate too fast.
6) After 4 minutes, you will see that the sauce thickens.
3rd part
1) Pour the quinoa from part 1 on the mushroom yellow pepper sauce.
2) Mix part 1 and 2 so the colors and flavors come together. The burner has to be in med- low.
3) While the quinoa risotto is slowly reducing put the Andean cheese cut into small cubes.
4) Add 2 teaspoons of butter.
5) Gently mix till the risotto is slightly moist.
6) Serve in a bowl.
7) Open a bottle of red wine.
8) Enjoy the food, enjoy life!

 

The story behind this recipe
I have to admit I am one lucky guy. I´ve always been surrounded by amazing flavors, rare ingredients, a loud Italian family, a Nonna (grandmother) with an amazing cooking talent and most of all, a privileged cusine: Peruvian cusine.
Life forced me to learn things the hard way. I went to study abroad, with no survival skills whatsoever and many things to learn. Cooking was one of them. Either I learned to cook or I´d just starve to death… so necessity made me discover my passion for cooking.
It was always hard being away from home and people usually used to ask: what is the thing you miss the most? And it wasn´t my dad or mom or brother… (well, sometimes) it was a nice dish of ceviche. Fresh fish cut into uneven cubes mixed with lemon, barely cooked, with a little salt, red chili, raw onions… or some homemade pesto “Nonna style”, where the smell of basil could hipnotize you from miles and miles away.
Every single time I went home to visit I used to come back with ideas and ingredients. I could talk for hours with my Nonna about recipes and the way they should be cooked. Step by step and me happily listening.
I remember that one time she mentioned that I should eat quinoa: “food of the incas and now of astronauts. It makes you stronger and smarter”. I smiled back and listen and if the monarch tells you to do something you just do it.
Then, one day my mom showed me the simplicity of cooking mushrooms and the amount of flavor they had and simply became a fanatic. I mixed them with different spices and tried to find different ways to eat them and did.
Peruvian cusine is all about fusion, being proud of our native ingredients and most important of all not being afraid to experiment with the traditional cusine. Mixing these 2 things I deeply enjoyed, taught by women I respect and love and all the experiences life “forced” me to learn… inspired me to create this amazing peruvian-italian risotto.