Cornbread, my love

Tonight I've made something glorious. Tonight I've made....

Pan de Choclo!

Peruvian cornbread, stuffed with spiced chicken, raisins, olives, and hard boiled eggs, pan de choclo is a winner.

Here's the recipe on my travel blog: KT-Synesthesia. I made this one with a pound of blue corn I used to make chicha, then boiled that and put it through the food processor to make corn meal.

I made it with a cranberry salsa, just to give it a little pink :) I'll include the recipe for that at the bottom, only eat it if you are in the mood to eat many many tortilla chips...or pan de choclo!

Favorite Perú food moments (Mis momentos favoritos de comida Peruana) - English & Español

If there is a food you come to Perú to experience, I'd have to argue that sure, while ceviche is great, if you want amazing food, it's a la leña. Perú knows how to slow cook meat over an open fire. Above you see chicharrones, smoky de-boned riblets soaking in their own grease, aka heaven. There's also lechón, a whole, slow-roasted suckling pig, that is served on french bread with sauces. Another must-do experience is trying cecina, beef or pork halfway through the jerky-making process, then grilled with lots of seasoned oil. The.best.beer.food.ever. Next, of course, anticuchos, or grilled cow heart, steals even the most doubting hearts. And finally, an old favorite, is pollo a la brasa, a whole slow cooked chicken injected with spice concoctions with incredibly crisp skin. Oooh....I'm drooling...

Si hay una comida que vienes a Perú para experimentar, me gustaría exponer que, aunque ceviche está bien rico, si quieres comida increíble, va a ser a la leña. Perú sabe como asar lentamente el carne. Arriba se puede ver chicharrones, que en Perú son costillas de cerdo (chancho) sin hueso, que vienen en su propio grasa, alias paraíso. También hay lechón, un cerdito entero asado por mucho tiempo, servido con pan francés y salsas. También debes tener la experiencia de probar cecina, carne de res o cerdo hecho a charqui (o charque), y asado con mucha aceite sazonada. Siguiente, por supuesto, son anticuchos, o corazón de res asado, que roba incluso a los corazones más dubitativos. Y finalmente, un clásico es pollo a la brasa, un pollo entero asado en el horno, inyectado con un menjunje de especias con un piel increíblemente crocante. Oohh...

¡Come Perú!

Just a little note, I've posted my favorite Peruvian food recipes at my travel blog, here: KT-Synesthesia.




Llama bread says, "Enjoy!"

Sweet as honey

For a couple months I've been wanting to make these Lithuanian Honey Spirits by the Global Table Adventure. Click the link for the recipe. When I first saw this, I was in Peru where I could never get some of those ingredients. Now that I've been in Denver, it's been a slow process of finding all the spices in my variety of ethnic stores that I like to go to. But I finally got everything!


Why did I spend so much time looking for spices in ethnic stores when I could just go to the super market and get them?

#1: Price

Spices are durn expensive in regular grocery stores. In ethnic stores the price tends to be much more reasonable.

#2: Amount

Anyone else think that portions of whole spices in grocery stores are skimpy??

#3: Adventure

Costco and King Soopers is boring. I'd rather be in a Middle Eastern or Asian market any day.


Middle Eastern stores tend to have allspice, nutmeg, cardamom, and peppercorns. Asian stores usually have fresh turmeric and whole cinnamon sticks.

I actually forgot to add nutmeg and vanilla to this, oops! I guess I'll just have to sprinkle nutmeg on it before it goes down the hatch :) The rest of the spices I already had.



Yummm....honey