Peruvian Highlands · Main
Quinua Atamalada
- Easy
- 25 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, aromatics blooming from the first bite, fading in warm spice.
Ingredients
- 300 g white quinoa
- 900 ml water
- 150 g red onion, fine dice
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 3 tbsp ají amarillo paste
- 45 ml oil
- 300 g yellow potatoes, 2 cm dice
- 200 g queso fresco, in cubes
- 200 ml evaporated milk
- 1 tbsp chopped huacatay, or mint
- salt and black pepper
The skills inside
Knife cuts: dice, julienne, bias
The words inside
Allergen screen
Found: dairy
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
- Rinse the quinoa in a fine sieve, rubbing the grains between your palms under cold water, until the water runs clear and stops foaming.
- Fry the onion, garlic and ají amarillo in the oil until the onion is translucent and the paste has darkened and lost its raw edge.
- Add the quinoa, potato and water, season, cover and simmer until each grain has uncoiled its white germ into a ring and the potato crushes against the side of the pan, about 18 minutes. 18 min
- Uncover and stir steadily with a wooden spoon until it thickens to the point where the spoon leaves a trail that closes slowly behind it.
- Pull the pan off the heat, fold in the milk, cheese and huacatay, and serve as soon as the cheese has softened without stringing.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Knife cuts: dice, julienne, bias 150 recipes
- Take any three pieces from anywhere in the pile: they match closely enough in every dimension that you would have to measure them to argue otherwise.
- The cut faces are flat and clean rather than ragged or crushed; leaves and herbs are cut through, not bruised, and the board carries no dark smear where they were.
- The stated size is the actual size, held against a rule or a known reference rather than called about right.
- Everything in the pile is the shape that was asked for: no wedges, no half pieces, and no offcuts swept in to avoid waste.
- They cook evenly, which is the entire point: at the end of cooking nothing is still raw and nothing has collapsed.
Where it goes wrong The knife was dull, or the vegetable was never squared off first, so the pieces vary: the small ones are mush by the time the large ones are cooked, and the dish has two textures where it wanted one.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Alpine white (dry Riesling, Grüner)
- Also Right
- Champagne: bubbles scrub richness
- From the Taps
- Bière de garde
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling apple
Melted cheese coats; acid and carbonation scrub: high-cut whites and Champagne keep the fondue from winning.
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