Llapingachos

Ingredients

• Potatoes — floury variety1 kg
• Soft white cheese250 g
• Achiote or paprika2 tsp
• Onion1
• Peanut butter150 g
• Milk250 ml
• Vegetable oil60 ml
• Eggs — to serve4
• Saltto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Boil the potatoes in their skins, peel them hot and mash them dry. Add no liquid at all.

   30 min

2. 2

   Warm the achiote in a spoon of oil for a minute and work the coloured oil into the mash with salt.

   5 min

3. 3

   Roll balls, press a cube of cheese into each, close them up and flatten into cakes a centimetre thick.

   15 min

4. 4

   Chill the cakes for half an hour; that is what holds their shape in the pan.

   30 min

5. 5

   For the sauce fry the onion, add the peanut butter and milk and simmer five minutes to the thickness of cream.

   12 min

6. 6

   Fry the cakes over medium heat, four minutes a side, to a golden crust.

   12 min

7. 7

   Serve with a fried egg, the sauce and an avocado salad.

   6 min

About the dish

The mash is made without milk or butter: potato, salt and a little achiote oil for colour, and nothing else. A wet mash will not hold as a cake and falls apart in the pan.

The cheese is hidden inside rather than mixed in. Frying melts it in its pocket, and the cake ends up with a stretchy middle inside a crisp crust.

The peanut sauce, salsa de maní, is as obligatory as the cake itself. It is thick, faintly sweet and served warm rather than at room temperature.

Worth knowing

• — New potatoes will not do: too little starch and the cakes fall apart.
• — Turn them once. Every extra move of the spatula breaks the crust and lets the cheese out.
• — The sauce thickens as it cools. Let it down with milk rather than water; water makes it taste hollow.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

520 kcal

Protein

20 g

Fat

27 g

Carbs

50 g

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