Charquicán – Andean Stew with Dried Beef and Squash
A journey into the heart of Andean cooking. Charquicán is a handed-down dish, born of the need to preserve food at altitude.
It is built on charqui — beef dried in the sun and heavily salted, the ancestor of what English calls jerky. Because of that salt, two things are not optional: rinse it, then boil it 15-20 minutes to rehydrate, and go very carefully with salt at the end — the meat brings plenty of its own.
The last step is what makes it a charquicán rather than a stew with meat in it: the potato and squash get crushed roughly in the pot, and it is the broken vegetable that binds everything together.
Traditionally each plate is crowned with a fried egg.
🔎 What is charqui? — where it comes from, what goes in it and how it differs.
Ingredients
- 250 g charqui (salted, sun-dried beef)
- 3 medium potatoes
- 300 g yellow squash or pumpkin
- 1 large onion, finely chopped
- 1/2 red bell pepper, in small cubes
- 2 garlic cloves, chopped
- 1 cup vegetable stock, or the water the meat was boiled in
- 1 tsp sweet paprika
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp chili flakes (optional, for a smoky note)
- 3 tbsp sunflower or corn oil
- Salt and black pepper, to taste — go carefully with the salt because of the charqui
Method
- 1
Preparing the meat: rinse the charqui under cold running water to remove the surface salt. Put it in a small pot of boiling water for 15-20 minutes so it rehydrates and softens.
- 2
Shredding: take the meat out — keep a cup of that cooking water — let it cool a little and shred it finely with your hands, or bruise it in a mortar.
- 3
Base: in a pot or deep pan, heat the oil over medium and cook the onion, the bell pepper and the chopped garlic with the smallest pinch of salt, until soft and translucent.
- 4
Add the shredded charqui to the base. Stir in the paprika, the cumin and the chili flakes. Cook everything together for 3-4 minutes so the meat takes on the aromatics.
- 5
Add the potatoes and the squash, cut into medium cubes. Pour in the reserved cup of stock, cover the pot and cook over low heat for 20 minutes, until the vegetables are completely tender.
- 6
The rough crush: with a potato masher or a large wooden spoon, break up the potato and the squash right there in the pot. Stir vigorously — the broken vegetable is what binds the stew to the meat.
- 7
Adjust the pepper, and the salt only if it needs it. Serve very hot in earthenware bowls. Traditionally, each plate is crowned with a fried egg.
Flavors of Salta
The soul of Argentina's northwest in your kitchen. A run through the Andean inheritance of corn, slow fire and deep flavors that take you there with every bite.
