Norn Iron Chef® Recipe

Huancaine -Style Peruvian Potatoes
10 medium potatoes, cooked and sliced.
1 small onion, finely chopped.
4 hard boiled eggs.
˝ cup of ricotta or cottage cheese, sieved.
2 teaspoons of chili powder.
2 Tablespoonfuls of evaporated milk.
3 tb spoons of oil.
Juice of ˝ a lemon.
10 black or green olives.
Handful of fresh parsley, chopped.
Salt and Pepper to taste.
 
METHOD
1: Boil a little water in a pan and cook the onion in it for a few minutes. Drain.
2: Remove the egg yolks from two of the hard boiled eggs and use a fork to mash them in a bowl.
3: Add the ricotta or cottage cheese to the egg yolks and season with chili pepper , salt and pepper.
4: Stir in the milk and mix well.
5:Add the oil , lemon juice, and cooked onion.
6:Slice the remaining eggs. Arrange the warm potato slices in a dish. Cover them with cheese sauce and garnish with olives, sliced eggs, and parsley.

Louis from the Tupac hotel in Cusco , Peru reminds us that however identified they’ve become with Ireland, potatoes were originally cultivated by natives of Peru, by some estimates as early as 7000 or 8000 thousand years ago. They were not introduced to the native Irish until Sir Walter Raleigh brought them back for his queen, Elisabeth 1st in the late 1500’s. Louise says that his favourite way of eating potatoes when he is on the hiking trail up to Machu Pichu is by covering the dry potatoes with clay and baking them in a clay “oven” dug out of the bank of a mountain, native style.
After the sun goes down it gets very cold and the hot roasted potatoes taste wonderful under the crescent shaped moon which just seems to be handing above his head.