Total Time: 2 hours. Quantity: 4-6 people.
Crema de comida:
The Crema de Huacatay, or also called "Chil-che", "Ajà huacatay, or salsa", is a cream prepared with love, and good flavor. The way to prepare it, part of the ground huacatay leaves, and is accompanied by other ingredients, such as: rocoto, cracker and coriander, whose ground gives us a green cream, and serves to accompany any dish of food. Although its preparation serves to accompany other dishes, such as pollada and parrillada. These allow to highlight the flavor of each of these meals.
Let's see how to prepare it!
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| Huacatay paddle. Image provided by Marcos G via Flickr. |
Ingredients for Salsa Huacatay:
- ½ kg (500 g) of fresh huacatay leaves.
- 1 medium sized rocoto (choose green color).
- 1 packaged cracker (there are 12 crackers inside).
- ½ cup (236.60 ml) of vegetable oil.
- ½ cup fresh milk (can be canned).
- 1 piece of fresh cheese (about 125 g).
- Salt to taste.
Preparation of the aji huacatay:
- On a frying pan. fry with oil the huacatay leaves and the green rocoto. In this way, we fry each ingredient, in order to obtain a better flavor.
- After frying, we let it cool on a medium bowl. And we enable our blender cup.
- On the blender cup, we add the piece of cheese (about 125 grams), 4 crackers, and 2 tablespoons of milk (this amount is not precise). Blend until you get a thick green cream (do it for 30 seconds).
- When your time is up, test the taste and texture of all the cream. If something is missing, try adding more cookies, or a few sips of milk. And a few huacatay leaves.
- Season with a pinch of salt, and blend all the time to form the cream.
- It can be served in all the plates of food that we fancy. But its tradition and custom serves to accompany it, in dishes such as pollada, and parrillada.
- Serve it in small bowls, and garnish it with coriander leaves. Just as in the photo.
Note: The huacatay cream can be spicy or not, depending on how much rocoto you use and how spicy the rocoto you have chosen is.