Pachamanca at Adely's (+ recipe for Siete Semillas)

In early December I got the amazing opportunity to attend a Pachamanca at the house of one of the participants in a program I work for. Pachamanca (meaning "earth pot" in Quechua) is an Andean manner of cooking where you either dig a hole in the earth or make a brick oven, build a fire and heat very hard stones over it. You then remove the stones from the fire, fill the oven with various types of potatoes and sweet potatoes , cover those with rocks, and then layer various types of meats with hot rocks, before coving the whole thing in rocks and topping it with fava beans. You then wrap the whole oven in wet cardboard, followed by plastic tarps, followed by blankets, and seal it so no heat escapes. Then you let everything cook at this super hot temperature for 30 minutes to an hour, and then uncover it all and dig in! Traditionally, you stand over the oven and eat everything fresh from the oven with your hands. We started that way, and then moved things over to plates :)

Here is a picture guide from start to finish of how to make Pachamanca - plus a few other recipe goodies I learned that day.

Umezing! 手作り梅酒

My host mother in Japan used to keep a jar under the sink. It was full of viscous liquid and little green balls, so I never touched it. Who knows what could have developed under that sink.

One night at dinner, she hauled the jar out from under the sink, and unloaded it into ice-filled glasses for my friends and I.

So I, who will try anything, ventured a sip. 

Lord, was it delicious. A tiny bit sour, syrupy, tangy, and alcohol...y

It was homemade Umeshu, a liqueur made from Japanese sour plums (they're kinda like crab apples), rock sugar (kouri-zatou 氷砂糖, or ice sugar in Japanese), and shochu (Japanese vodka).

You'd remember drinking horchata

I don't know about you, but if I hear "horchata", I think Vampire Weekend. Click this to dig it.

TIP = horchata is pronounced "or·CHA·ta"


Recently, I became inspired to make horchata.

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!