Mushroom cau cau
Local name: Cau cau de champiñones
Potatoes and mushrooms in a turmeric and ají amarillo sauce, finished with fresh mint and served over white rice.
Photo: MiguelAlanCS · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Prep
- 20 min
- Cook
- 35 min
- Total
- 55 min
- Serves
- 4
- Difficulty
- Easy
Method
- Peel the potatoes and cut them into 2 cm cubes. Rinse them to wash off the surface starch.
- Brown the mushrooms in 2 tbsp oil over high heat, leaving them still at first, then set them aside.
- In the same pan, sweat the onion and garlic in the remaining oil for 6 minutes.
- Add the ají amarillo and turmeric, then stir over medium heat for 3 minutes to cook the spices in the fat.
- Pour in the stock and the potatoes, season, half-cover the pan and cook for 18 minutes.
- Crush a few cubes against the side of the pan to thicken the sauce, then return the mushrooms and add the peas for 5 minutes.
- Chop the mint and stir it in off the heat. Serve with white rice.
Turmeric wants fat before liquid: cooked straight in water it holds on to an earthy bitterness. Lima cooks build cau cau on tripe, but the yellow sauce works with anything that drinks up the stock.
