Vegetarian recipes from Peru

Peruvian cooking is first a cuisine of tubers and roots: dozens of potato varieties, sweet potato and cassava, later joined by rice and beans. The fat is neutral oil, and the seasoning comes almost entirely from fresh chillies, above all the yellow, fruity aji amarillo, blended with onion and garlic into a cooked base that starts most hot dishes, such as mushroom cau cau. Lime, used raw and in quantity, plays the opposite role, that of cooking without heat. Maize, as giant kernels or as flour, completes this starch base.

A meal often works through layering and contrasts of temperature. Causa limena is a terrine of yellow potato purée tightened with chilli and lime, built in layers and served cold; papa a la huancaina covers warm slices with a sauce of fresh cheese and aji amarillo. Mushroom ceviche keeps the acid marinade and red onion of the seafood model, and tacu tacu shows the other side of this cooking, yesterday’s rice and beans pressed back into the pan. White rice goes with almost everything, and raw red onion, rinsed then salted, acts as a counterpoint on most plates.