Saturday Supper

I had invited the family to supper on Saturday, so my cousin Diego and I went to Minka on Saturday morning. Minka is a huge market with amazing produce and foodstuffs, and many other things besides. And of course one of my favorite parts is the seafood pavillion - yes, pavillion, there's that much of it.

I loaded up on groceries and got cooking rather too late, I'm afraid (we got a late start due to having been out until 4:30 am the night before), and only finished in time because my mom helped prep and my aunt Marina helped me finish up.

Almost everyone came, and we had a good time and we ate rather well, even if I do say so myself!

Here's what I fixed:

Scallops baked with parmesan cheese

Fettucine with shrimp and clam sauce

Causa stuffed with crab salad, acompanied by whole cracked crabs

Causa is a dish made by mashing boiled potatoes with lime juice, salt, and puréed yellow hot peppers.
In this case the potatoes used were Peruvian yellow potatoes (papa amarilla), and the potato mixture
served with a layer of crab, onion, and mayonnaise salad.

A sudado of pejesapo with dow see, vegetables, and scallops

A sudado is a cooking technique in which seafood is half braised and half steamed in a
liquid, usually a broth - in this case mussel broth. A pejesapo is a type of very ugly native
rock fish. It resembles a toad, hence its name which means "toadfish."

Mussel broth

I also fixed a pisco sour mousse recipe that I got from PescadoLimón, which I did not photograph, and my mom bought a chocolate and lúcuma cake, over which we sang "Happy Birthday" (well, actually, "Felíz cumpleaños") to my mom, Nicolás, and me.

Unfortunately, after I got the food served, I got so busy attending to everyone that I forgot to pull the camera back out until after nearly everyone had left.

Orlando, Toya's husband, and granduncle Aníbal

Willy, in a very familiar spot and post-meal activity