Papa a la Huancaína: Peruvian Cheese Sauce
Cold boiled potatoes under a yellow sauce of ají amarillo, fresh cheese and cream crackers. It is the most-served starter on the Peruvian table, and the sauce does more than potatoes: it goes with hard-boiled egg, with corn, or as a dip. The cracker is not cheap filler — it is the thickener that gives the creaminess with no flour and no cooking.
🔎 What is ají amarillo? — where it comes from, what goes in it and how it differs.
Ingredients
- 1 kg medium potatoes
- 200 g fresh cheese or young soft cheese
- 3 fresh ají amarillo (or 3 tbsp ají amarillo paste)
- 1/2 onion in chunks
- 1 garlic clove
- 6 cream crackers
- 150 ml evaporated milk (or whole milk)
- 3 tbsp oil
- Salt
- Hard-boiled eggs, black olives and lettuce leaves, to serve
Method
- 1
Boil the potatoes in their skins until tender. Peel them and let them cool: huancaína is served cold or barely warm, never hot.
- 2
With fresh chillies: split them and remove the seeds and the white ribs, where nearly all the heat sits. Boil 5 minutes, change the water and boil another 5. That double boil keeps the flavour and takes out the burn.
- 3
Soften the onion and garlic in the oil until translucent, along with the drained ají.
- 4
Blend everything with the cheese, the crackers and the milk into a smooth cream. Season.
- 5
Adjust the texture: it should fall from the ladle in a ribbon, not drip. Too thick, more milk; too loose, one more cracker.
- 6
Cut the potatoes into thick slices and lay them on lettuce leaves.
- 7
Cover with the sauce and garnish with quartered egg and black olives.
- 8
The sauce keeps three days in the fridge and thickens as it cools: loosen it with a splash of milk before serving.