Wow, what an amazing day!
We intentionally arrived in Lima a couple of days before the start of our Overseas Adventure Travel tour so that we could take a cooking class in Peru. After a bit of research, we booked the “Peruvian Cooking Class & Local Market Tour” experience hosted by Haku tours.
Our guide Aaron met us at the hotel, we took a ride share to the local Mercado #2 de Surquillo, just south of Miraflores in the district of Surguillo. Here we met Marco, our chef instructor, who was shopping for the fruit, veggies & protein that we prepared in the cooking class. This market caters to the local Peruvian residents in the Surquillo neighborhood. I think we were the only tourists there.
After touring the market, we caught another ride share back to Miraflores where we participated in a wonderful 3.5 hour, totally hands-on Peruvian cooking experience. We opted to make ceviche as our appetizer and aji de pollo for our main course. Recipes are included below. The class had a total of 5 students (the other 3 were from Germany & Austria that are here doing an internship teaching German at an elementary school in a small town about 2 hours away from Lima).
Fun fact: Peru is home to an astonishing 4,000 distinct types of potatoes,
The class also included an exotic fruit tasting and a potato tasting with two different sauces that we prepared (a sweet sauce and a spicy one). The potatoes were cooked in a clay pot with no liquid, just various herbs lining the bottom of the pot. Our main course of chicken and sauce were also cooked in a clay pot. The Peruvian marinade for ceviche is called tigers milk and includes saltine crackers.
We finished the meal with some Chicha Morada drink made from purple corn and a lot of other fruits & stuff boiled and strained.
Cooking Photos:
Market Photos:
Recipes used in class:
