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

Just wondering!  Here are 5 of my fave condiments right now (What are yours?):


1.) Bacon Salt (yes, it can be vegan!):


 A baked potato with my homemade Bacon Salt-- here's my recipe. All the the bacon salt I have seen on the Internet is vegetarian-- it either just contains the flavorings for bacon (liquid smoke, brown sugar, etc.), or it contains some soy bacon bits, but some brands contain milk products (like J&D brand).


The sodium content of this condiment is much, much lower than table salt-- 1 teaspoon of my homemade recipe contains 90.2 mg. of sodium; 1 teaspoon of table salt contains 1880 mg of sodium! My recipe is much lower in sodium than the commercial brands I've checked.

Dried Peruvian Panca and Mirasol chiles

Last Thursday, DH and I went to Vancouver for a few days. Among other things, we enjoyed a big family party for my cousin Chris' birthday, and visited with a whole passle of cousins, nieces, and nephews, and my youngest daughter and SIL, and my youngest grandson. The weather was pleasant, the food was great, and it was fun catching up with everyone!

On Saturday, Chris' partner Roxanne drove me, with my daughter Justine, all over Vancouver looking for a Norpro ravioli rolling pin, but I couldn't find one, so I ended up ordering one on ebay! I've heard really good things about this implement, so I'll report back when I've tried it!

We also were on the lookout for Peruvian ingredients. We found them at, of all places, the Killarney Market on 49th! What fun!

Here are some more of my purchases, which I will also report on when I've tried them:


Yellow pepper paste and canned Aji Amarillo


Trigo mote, a knd of wheat that is used in delicious pilaf/risotto kind of dishes, and a proprietary huacatay sauce (huacatay is an herb that tastes like a cross between mint and cilantro).


Huacatay paste, "Papa seca" (Peruvian freeze-dried potatoes, an ancient food that's used in stews), and, in the back, achiote paste (annatto), which is used in Peruvian kebabs (anticuchos).

That night DH, cousin Chris and his partner Roxanne and I judged a stand-up comedy competition benefit for the Vancouver Food Bank. That was fun, too, but we were up way past my bedtime! We unanimously chose Luis Moncayo, a Columbian immigrant who was both smart AND funny!

Stay tuned for my experiments!

Cheers!

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