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Potato Stew - Cau Cau


In Peru it's very common to see dishes with rice and potatoes at the same time, and since we have over 2000 different kinds of potatoes, we make a lot of potato dishes. 

Here is one of them. The original name for it is Cau-Cau (sounds like cow-cow), formerly it was made with "mondongo" which is one of the stomachs of the cow, and in a lot of places in Peru they still make it this way, but in my mom's house nobody liked mondongo, so my mom made it with pieces of chicken breast. And now that I am vegetarian I do it with mushrooms.
Today the whole dish is Rice (jazmine rice) with Cau-Cau and radish salad.

Radish Salad:
2 bunches of radish
1 lime
salt and pepper

First take the leaves apart from the roots and then wash them.

Slice them in thin circles. I don't have a mandolin cutter but a sharp knife works well for me.

Add the lime juice and season with salt and pepper.

I usually do this salad first so the lime has time to marinate the radishes.



Portobello mushroom Cau-Cau

 2 cups of small portobello mushrooms
2 garlic cloves
1/2 yellow onion
4 medium yellow potatoes
1/2 cup of peas
3 tbsp fresh parsley
1 tsp of tumeric
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup of water
1 tbsp of aji amarillo/yellow pepper *

I picked small portobello mushrooms because they were on sale at the store, but you really can use white mushrooms or pieces of chicken breast (if you are not vegetarian)

First chop all of your ingredients, try to chop the mushrooms in four pieces or keep them whole if they are very small.

Then chop the onion in very small squares, so as the garlic. You can also crush the garlic.


I like to chop everything before I put my pan in the stove, so I just need to add everything without worrying about things getting burn.






Then peel the potatoes and chop them in medium size squares, about 3/4 of an inch.


This time I used frozen peas, they work pretty good, you also can use fresh peas, but I haven't find them yet at the store,  I haven't use can peas for this dish, but I think the only difference it will be that you need to add it at the very end so they don't over cook.


Put a medium size pan in the stove on medium heat, add the olive oil until it warms up.

Add garlic and onions, let them gold for a couple of minutes, then add the yellow pepper and tumeric, if you don't have this yellow pepper you can replace it with a pinch of cayenne pepper, just to give a little mild spice to the seasoning.
Now add you "meat of choice , in this case it's mushrooms. Let them cook for a little, and remember to stir occasionally, then add the potatoes and peas and water. Let it cook until the potatoes are soft.
Once it's all cook, add the parsley and let it set away from the heat for about 5 minutes before serving.

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