Cusco Gastronomic Tours
After the market we did a lot of chopping and prep work.
This was my third cooking class in Cusco, but my first that started with a market tour and my first in the morning.
Ronal was our chef, and my class had two mother-daughter pairs, one from New Zealand and the other from Australia.
First, Ronald asked each of us if we wanted to make a main course of ceviche or lomo saltado. Ceviche is made with fish, cured in lime juice rather than cooked with heat. It has been prepared in Peru for thousands of years, but modern ceviche has a lot of Japanese influence. Lomo saltado is a classic Peruvian stir fry with tenderloin, a fusion of Chinese cooking techniques with ingredients from Europe and the Andes.
Next, he said that we would all make the same appetizer and had us vote on causa or rocoto relleno: causa won. Causa is a cold, layered potato dish, made with cooked and grated yellow potatoes mixed with yellow chili peppers. The middle layer is often chicken but we were going to make a ceviche-style filling.
Our last choice was pisco sour with lime or maracuyá, a kind of passionfruit.
At the entrance to San Pedro you can get a sense of Eiffel’s metal roof and how dark it is inside.
Then it was off to the market to buy all the ingredients.
The first market we went to was the famous (and touristy) San Pedro.
The metal roof was designed by Gustave Eiffel, of Eiffel Tower fame, because he loved Cusco so much when he visited. While I can appreciate that it’s historic, it makes the market very dark.
Ronald showed us the areas of the market for meat, bread and cheese, before walking us through the vegetable area. He didn’t buy any meat and only bought bread for us to taste, but he bought cheese for us to snack on later. He bought some potatoes in the vegetable area but said we’d get most of the fruits and vegetables at the next market.
The second market, called Casccaparo, was mostly outside, so the light was much better for photos.
We started with vegetables and then moved on to fruits. This is where I did most of my shopping in 2020 because it’s outside and indoor markets had more restrictions during the pandemic. When I’m shopping, my hands are full so this was the first time I’ve been able to take photos here.
We did a lot of chopping to get all the ingredients ready before we made pisco sours.
Back at the kitchen
As soon as we got back, Ronald sliced the cheese and bread for us to have a mini-appetizer before our causa appetizer. Then he made a fruit course for us, explaining different Peruvian fruits like granadilla and maracuyá, types of passionfruit. We also tasted pepino dulce, a relative of the tomato but very much a fruit.
The pisco sour
We squeezed limes and emptied two maracuyás for the flavoring in our pisco sours. The lime can be used as is, but maracuyá has to be pulsed a bit in a blender then strained to get the seeds out. Each one of us got a shaker and put in 6 ice cubes, 2 shots of pisco, an egg white and either lime juice or maracuyá. It takes a lot of shaking to get the egg white foamy, but eventually we all got it and Ronal added three drops of bitters to each. The bitters don’t change the flavor but do provide some aroma to mask any egg smell.
Time to make causa
Then it was time to start on the real appetizer. We started chopping the ingredients for the filling while Ronal’s sous-chef in the back got the potatoes ready. She had been cooking and prepping while we had our cheese and fruit snacks and made pisco sours.
For the filling, we used chopped trout, cured in lime juice, mixed with chopped cilantro and a bit of mayonnaise to stick it all together. Ronal mixed cooked and grated yellow potato with a yellow pepper sauce, then gave each of us a mold and put down the bottom layer of potato. Next was a layer of avocado, the trout filling, another layer of yellow potato and finally a bit more filling, red limo pepper slice and a pansy on top.
After the causa appetizer was ready, we mixed the ceviche.
The main course
With half of us doing ceviche and half doing lomo saltado, Ronal had us each do some chopping and prep work, then we mixed the ceviche and set it aside to go watch the lomo saltado. It’s always impressive to watch lomo saltado made in a wok because it goes fast and at one point you have to tilt the wok enough to set it on fire. Ronal’s kitchen is on a courtyard, so the smoke mostly went outside.
When the two who made lomo saltado were ready, it was time for us to eat.
Lunch time!
Finally, we sat down to have our causa and then either ceviche or lomo saltado. I’ve eaten a lot of ceviche but this was the first time I made causa. Ronal did a good job teaching the process, but it’s a lot of work and I wouldn’t make it just for myself. I’ll have to invite people over to have an excuse to make it.
How to sign up?
Check out Ronal’s Cusco Gastronomic Tours Facebook and follow him on Instagram.
