Peruvian Highlands · Main
Cuy Chactado
- Advanced
- 35 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, an earthy, grounding base, with a clean, bright snap.
Ingredients
- 1 cuy, dressed and butterflied (about 700 g), or 1 rabbit (1.2 kg), jointed
- 6 garlic cloves, crushed to a paste
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tbsp salt
- 150 g fine maize flour, or chuño flour
- 700 ml lard or neutral oil, for frying
- 600 g yellow potatoes, boiled, to serve
- 300 g mote (cooked hominy), to serve
- 1 rocoto, 1 red onion and the juice of 2 limes, for the salsa
The skills inside
The coat before the fry: dredge, crumb, batterDraining fried food: a rack, never paper
Allergen screen
Found: gluten
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Open the cuy out flat and press down on the ribcage with the heel of your hand until it cracks and the whole animal lies at an even thickness.
- Rub it inside and out with garlic, cumin and salt and leave it an hour; wipe off the surface moisture before it goes near the fat.
- Heat the lard in a wide pan to 170C (340F), dredge the cuy in maize flour and press the flour on so it clings in a thin, even coat.
- Lay it skin down and set a foil-wrapped flat stone or a heavy pan on top; fry until the skin is amber and audibly crisp at the edges, then turn, weight again and fry until a skewer slides into the thigh without resistance.
- Drain on a rack rather than paper, and serve with potatoes, mote and a sharp rocoto and onion salsa.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Draining fried food: a rack, never paper 77 recipes
- The rack was in place before the first thing went into the oil, not fetched afterwards while food waited in a spider over the pot.
- It lands on a rack with air moving underneath it. Anything set down on paper or a flat plate traps its own steam against its base.
- Salted within seconds of landing, while it is still hot enough to take seasoning.
- A minute later the underside is still as crisp as the top: no soft flat patch where it has been sitting.
- Nothing is stacked or piled while hot, however tempting it is to keep it together. A pile steams itself soft from the inside out.
Where it goes wrong It was drained on paper, or piled up to keep warm. Steam leaving the food has nowhere to go but back into the crust, so the underside softens within a minute: the crispness the frying just bought is gone before the plate reaches the table.
The coat before the fry: dredge, crumb, batter 80 recipes
- The coat is continuous before it goes anywhere near the fat: held up to the light, no bare patch of food shows through anywhere, seams and thin edges included.
- It is bonded rather than resting on top: a gentle shake sheds loose dust only, and the coat does not slide off as a sheet when the piece is handled.
- It bubbles hard and steadily from the moment it enters the fat, and the bubbling visibly slows as it finishes; those bubbles are the surface water leaving, and a quiet entry means the fat is too cool.
- Out and drained, it is an even gold-brown all over and it is still crisp several minutes later on a rack; a coat that softens within a minute of coming out never lost its water.
- Broken open, there is no paste of raw flour under the crust and no hollow gap where the coat has lifted away from the food.
Where it goes wrong The fat was below temperature or the pan was crowded, so the coat drank fat instead of sealing against it: it comes out pale and heavy, greasy to the fingers, and slumps off the food as it cools.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Champagne: when lost, bubbles
- Also Right
- Cru Beaujolais, lightly chilled
- From the Taps
- Pilsner
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling water with citrus
The universal donors: acid, bubbles, and low tannin rescue nearly any plate: the sommelier’s honest safety net.
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