Today, to welcome Carla back to Peru, it was decided that Diego and I would cook lunch at my cousin Juancho's apartment. Diego was hankering for cecina, smoked peccary meat from the jungle, so we headed to the municipal market in Magdalena del Mar where there are several stands specializing in Amazonian products.
We bought a pound or so of cecina, and some pork chorizo from Tarapoto. On a whim we also grabbed about a 1/3 of a majaz (agôuti) carcass.
We prepared papa a la huancaína (potatoes with a spicy cheese sauce) as a starter because Carla had been craving it, but the rest of the meal was straight Amazonian.
We prepared papa a la huancaína (potatoes with a spicy cheese sauce) as a starter because Carla had been craving it, but the rest of the meal was straight Amazonian.
The agôuti went into a pot to be cooked into a stew, to be served with rice, cecina, and chorizo, with fried yuca on the side.
We had also purchased some of those tiny but killer ajies that they have in the jungle. Those I made into a sauce with onion and lime juice, leaving some peppers whole. When I blended the rest to give the sauce some background kick, everyone -even the dogs, I kid you not!- started coughing and sneezing from the pungency of the little buggers.
The meal turned out very nicely. Carla S. and her family came over as well, and we all had a nice time eating, drinking wine, and chatting for several hours.
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