Bryanna Clark Grogan’s Vegan Feast Kitchen/ 23rd Century Table

A squeeze bottle with my homemade Peruvian restaurant-style green sauce.
This sauce is positively addictive!

A reader has started somewhat of a revolution in my house, and I think it's happening elsewhere. "Quizeen" asked about "a particular green-colored sauce served at every Peruvian restaurant I've ever been to in Southern California." She goes on: "At each of these restaurants they serve a pale green, light sauce in a squeeze bottle. I always get a Peruvian-style vegetable stir-fry and load it up thoroughly with this sauce. I've begged and pleaded with every server I've ever encountered to tell me what's in the sauce or even what it's called. They never spill the ingredients and the only name they'll give me is "aji," which just means "pepper." The sauce is pale green/white, very thin, isn't particularly spicy and might have cucumber blended in it, but that's just wild speculation. I will be eternally grateful to anyone who can shed some light on this magnificent condiment."

Now, I knew what that Peruvian stir-fry was-- Lomo Saltado, more than likely. My father was Peruvian and I have "veganized" that dish and quite a few other Peruvian dishes for my newsletter and for various workshops that I've given. (Update: The Lomo Saltado recipe [and quite a few other Peruvian dishes as well] is in my book World Vegan Feast, under the name "Peruvian Stir-Fry".) But this green sauce was news to me and I just had to find out what it was! I have been housebound due to a bad cold for the last few days, so I have occupied myself with researching this "mystery green sauce" or "magical green sauce", as I was subsequently heard it referred to.

How could I have missed this sauce? Well, after much research, I believe that it is simply because I don't live in a place where Peruvian restaurants are common, such as SoCal and Miami. But I'm getting ahead of myself!

I have discovered that one of the possible origins of this green sauce is a sauce consisting of the leaves of the Andean herb huacatay, vinegar, salt, peppers, and sometimes oil.

"Huacatay (Tagetes minuta), is a native Peruvian herb related to marigold and tarragon, has a pungent aroma somewhere between mint and basil. Among thousands of native herbs, huacatay has given Peruvian seasoning its unique zest from Incan to contemporary times.
... Because this herb has such a special flavor, there really is no substitute, though a combination of mint and coriander comes closest."
From: Field Guide to Herbs & Spices, by Aliza Green

Huacatay, if you can find it, is rarely sold fresh in North American, but I understand that the leaves are available in some Latin American grocery stores, either frozen, dried, or in a paste form in jars.

I found some recipes online for "Peruvian Aji Sauce" that were described as similar to those found in Peruvian restaurants in North America (aji means pepper, BTW). Most were variations on a theme-- lettuce, mayonnaise, jalapeño peppers, cilantro, and garlic were the main ingredients. It seemed that inventive expatriate Peruvian cooks were using lettuce leaves and cilantro for the huacatay herb and jalapeño peppers instead of the fresh Peruvian yellow peppers (US online source: aji amarillo). But mayonnaise? Well, that was explained with a little more digging. Although many of the traditional huacatay sauce recipes I encountered were very simple mixtures of the herb with vinegar, peppers, and salt, a few of them instructed the cook to whip in oil as if you were making mayonnaise, resulting in a creamy sauce-- a-ha! And, it must be noted that Peruvians are very fond of mayonnaise-y things!

To further confuse me, though, I then encountered comments and recipes by some Peruvians stating that green sauce should contain evaporated milk (or cream) and queso fresco! This didn't sound to me like something you'd leave on restaurant tables in a squeeze bottle-- it would need to be kept refrigerated. But several posters insisted that this was the authentic green sauce. 

Hmmmmm...more digging. After some Web research and perusing (not to make a pun) the few Peruvian cookbooks that I own, I have come to the conclusion that this is a different sauce altogether-- derivatives of a sauce used on a dish called Ocopa a la Arequipena, a potato dish with a creamy pepper sauce made with evaporated milk (or cream) and cheese (queso fresco), huacatay, and often peanuts or walnuts. Here is an example of such a recipe.

So, my opinion is that the Peruvian Green Sauce served in North American restaurants as a table condiment, usually in a squeeze bottle, is a slightly Americanized version of the Huacatay Sauce that is emulsified with oil to make it creamy. Mayonnaise is used instead of oil as a shortcut, jalapeño peppers are used when Peruvian yellow peppers (US online source: aji amarillo) cannot be found, and cilantro and lettuce are used in place of the hard-to-obtain huacatay. The result may not be absolutely authentic, but it stands on its own as a delicious condiment! (UPDATE: If you live in the USA you can order this combination aji amarillo and huacatay sauce from amazon.com or from this Latino market in Miami)

I once got a lecture from a Peruvian about some of the substitute ingredients I was using in a Peruvian dish. But, in my opinion, one should not let the inability to get the EXACT ingredients deter you from making ethnic foods. Immigrants have always had to "make do" and be creative when they settle in new countries. Immigrant populations who came to Peru also had to do just that-- witness the interesting Chinese/Peruvian cuisine, which mixes Cantonese Chinese cuisine with local Peruvian flavors.
"Chifa [from the Mandarin words 吃飯 "chi fan", meaning "to eat food"] is the Peruvian term for Chinese food, or for a Chinese restaurant. In the 150 years since its arrival in Peru, the Chinese Peruvian culture has revolutionized Peruvian cuisine, gaining international recognition from those who have had the opportunity to sample it while visiting Peru. Chifa reflects a fusion by Chinese Peruvians of the products that the Chinese brought with them to those that they found in Peru, and later cultivated themselves." From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peruvian_cuisine#El_Chifa

Anyway, I came up with a vegan version of this sauce that we LOVE! I would like to make it with Peruvian yellow peppers and huacatay when I can find those ingredients. My next foray to Vancouver, perhaps...? UPDATE: I did find aji amarillo paste and huacatay paste on my last trip to Vancouver, at the Killarney Market. (Sounds like an odd place to find Peruvian ingredients, but they have a GREAT selection of Latin American and international foods. Here's their interesting story! See address and contact info below.)  
I would like to try to grow some huacatay (also known as  Tagetes minuta ) one of these days. You can purchase the seeds online in the US here (from Oregon), and in Canada, ebay.ca has a few sellers-- this one sounds reasonable and free shipping, too.. It should be possible to grow aji amarillo, too. (For Canadians, this Quebec seed company carries them.)

Killarney Market
2611 East 49th
Vancouver, British Columbia
Phone (604) 438-0869
Email info@killarneymarket.ca
Website http://www.killarneymarket.ca/

We loved the green sauce on sweet potato oven-fries, and also on veggie burgers and even tomato sandwiches!  It is used as a dip for bread and yucca fries in Peruvian restaurants, too. It's pretty addictive! (But, my recipe has negligible fat and calories, so who cares?)

The Green Sauce was delicious on Camote Frito-- Sweet potato "Fries" (oven-fried!-- recipe below)



Printable Recipe

A breakfast burrito at The Naam with the new Daiya vegan cheese melted on top-- yum!

This is going to be a photo blog today, as I just got back from 3 days in Vancouver and am playing catch-up! Apart from visiting with friends and family, and enjoying the balmy weather, we spent time eating exotic foods and shopping for foods and kitchen implements I couldn't find on the Island (Vancouver island, that is).

I particularly wanted to taste the newest vegan cheese, Daiya, because I had heard it tasted good and melted beautifully. It is not available in retail yet, but will be soon, I understand. So far, though, you can only taste it in restaurants and, even though it is made in the Vancouver area, it is only available in one Vancouver, BC restaurant, The Naam. (See where to enjoy Daiya cheese here. Contact them to let them know you are waiting for it!) So, I made my companions (DH, my cousin Chris, my stepsons Laurence and Sean, and Laurie's girlfriend Meghan) go for Saturday brunch at the The Naam, a vegetarian restaurant. Now, the Naam has been around since the early 70's and the food is plentiful, good and pretty reasonable. The restaurant is famous for its slow service (a remnant of its hippy past), but nobody seems to mind.

Our waiter informed me that anything that had cheese in it could be made with Daiya. I chose the Breakfast Burrito (scrambled tofu with onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes mixed with vegan sausage in a whole wheat flour tortilla, topped with cheese and served with salsa).





It was very hearty and delicious... and the Daiya cheese? It was melty, creamy and surprisingly tasty. Please let them know you are interested! It might speed things up!

We then spent some time in the Kitsilano area and made our usual foray to the Parthenon Supermarket, a great Greek and Middle Eastern grocery owned by a friend of ours who used to live on Denman Island, Kyriakos Katsanikakis. I always go there for gigante beans (giant lima beans) and cannellini or Great Northern beans. We were lucky to see Kyriakos this time!

For dinner on Saturday night we went to a South Indian vegetarian restaurant called Saravanaa Bhavan. It is part of a worldwide chain of restaurants originating in India. The decor is pretty basic, but the food is great, with good prices and friendly, helpful service. They have lots of dosas (Indian crepes) and other wonderful dishes. We concentrated on dosas and biryani. I would definitely go back again! (Here's the Vancouver menu.)


Adai Avial-- crepes made from mung beans-- DH had this one.


Rava (semolina) dosa


How they make the dosa in restaurants.

I had the semolina and rice dosa with masala potato filling and 3 chutneys-- delicious! The vegetable and mushroom biryanis were spicy and tasty. Nothing tasted greasy at all.

On Sunday morning we took my cousin's partner, Roxanne, to work at the new Ten Thousand Villages store she opened and manages on Granville Island, a major tourist attraction (especially for foodies!) in Vancouver. We did some shopping and looking and worked up an appetite (we ate lunch at home this time, bringing home some yummy sourdough peasant bread).

The new Granville Island Ten Thousand Villages store:





More Granville island shots:





















Sunday night we picked up Roxanne and met my daughter Justine, her partner George and son L., our friends Brenda and John, my stepson Laurie and his girlfriend Meghan At the Pondok Indonesia Restaurant on Broadway. The service was pretty slow and uneven, but the food was very good! DH and I shared a Vegetarian Rice Table, or rijsttafel (often misspelled rijstaffel), a Dutch word that literally translates to "rice table", and is an elaborate meal adapted by the Dutch from the Indonesian feast called nasi padang:



It consisted of sticky rice, stir-fried bean sprouts, stir-fried tofu with tomatoes, "Hawker-style" noodles (Bami Goreng) with cabbage, and deep-fried tofu with peanut sauce and vegetables.

Roxanne ordered a young coconut-- you drink the coconut "water" and then scoop out the pudding-like flesh of the unripe coconut--very refreshing!



My grandson wanted nothing more than a bowl of edamame!


Dessert for some of the group was deep-fried bananas with vanilla ice cream-- a dish I make vegan and low-fat at home by rolling the banana with a little brown sugar in phyllo pastry and baking until crispy, and then serving with nondairy vanilla "ice cream"-- the perfect combination of crispy and soft, hot and cold!



Glad to be home, but it was a tasty trip!

Cheers!

               It wasn't a huge haul, but not bad considering our dry weather!

We went chanterelle hunting in the woods on a good friend's property yesterday. It was lovely walking in the woods! We saw very tall ant hills made of pine needles here and there, and something new for me-- "ant highways", as my friend called them. They were skinny little tracks about a 1/2-inch deep into the dirt, like a a very skinny bicycle tire had made the track, and if you bent down to look, you could see armies of ants busily traversing the forest floor via these "highways". Amazing!

The weather has been very dry for BC this summer, but we have had a couple of good rains lately, so we were hopeful that we might find some beauties in our friends' wood-- they have the "motherlode" of chanterelle hunting on their property. Our friend doesn't like them very much, and her husband (who does) is away, so whatever we found was all for us! We didn't find alot (it's early days yet), but they were some of the nicest-looking, clean, firm chanterelles I have ever picked!

When I got home, I cleaned them up and made this delicious dish, both elegant and low in calories, for our supper:

Printable Recipe

I had a delicious pear pizza at a friend's house one time, and I've been wanting to make something similar ever since. Since I had some nice ripe pears on my counter, I decided to try my own version the other day. I used my own pizza dough (see http://veganfeastkitchen.blogspot.ca/search?q=pizza for posts with various pizza dough recipes and techniques), and added a creamy vegan "goat cheese spread", arugula and pecans. It was excellent, if I do say so myself! I hope you'll give it a try, now that pears are in season.



Printable Recipe

BRYANNA'S PEAR PIZZA WITH VEGAN "GOAT CHEESE", PECANS AND ARUGULA
Servings: 8
Yield: 4/ 9-10" pizzas

This is a deliciously savory way to enjoy pears!

1 recipe Bryanna's Neapolitan Pizza Dough (or other)
1 recipe Bryanna's Creamy Tofu/Cashew or Sunflower Seed "Goat Cheese" Spread
OR Bryanna's Creamy Tofu/Tahini "Blue Cheese" Spread Variation (see recipe below)
3 cups thinly-sliced baby arugula