Quinoa Pancakes – Direct From Peru!
A field of quinoa near Lake Piuray, Peru.
Quinoa wasn’t even on my list of must-have adventures for our recent trip to Peru.
Machu Picchu? Yep. Riding Paso horses? You bet! Shopping for colorful woven handicrafts? Of course. But dining on quinoa, taking pictures of quinoa, collecting quinoa recipes? Not so much.
Quinoa soup with soft boiled quail egg in Urubamba in the Sacred Valley of Incas, Peru.
The first encounter
To be quite honest, I had tried quinoa several times over the years and always found it kinda tasteless and a little mushy. However, my opinion changed on Day One when I was served the most divine soup at El Huacatay Restaurant in Urubamba.
“Oh my, oh my, oh my!” I exclaimed (in my very own When Sally Met Harry moment). In addition to the white quinoa, the soup contained a soft boiled quail egg, black mint (huacatay), cheese, tomato, carrots, and a couple other finely shredded veggies.
It remains a vivid memory
This pizza – with black quinoa in the crust – was delicious.
Quinoa pizza
The soup wasn’t an isolated incident. Not far from Urubamba, my husband and I shared a pizza at a darling little café in Yucay called Añañau. In the course of 20+ years of marriage, we’ve enjoyed many a pizza together, but this was the first one with black quinoa in the crust.
Seriously delicious.
Quinoa pancakes a la Inkaterra Aguas Calientes.
THE pancakes
While our quinoa encounters in Peru were all positive, the dish I loved the very most was the red quinoa pancakes I ate for breakfast at the Inkaterra Hotel in Aguas Calientes. They arrived sprinkled with powdered sugar and surrounded by chunks of sweet mango.
“Might I possibly be able to get a copy of the recipe for these pancakes?” I said as politely as possible to our poker-faced waiter.
“Sure,” he replied, “but it will cost a hundred dollars.”
My jaw dropped, and before I was able to pick it up, he disappeared through the swinging door to the kitchen and reappeared – grinning from ear to ear – with the recipe below.
Happy, happy day.
Quinoa Pancakes
Ingredients:
200 gr. cooked red quinoa
200 gr. flour
5 eggs
1 Tsp vanilla
2 Tsp baking power
3 Tbsp port
3 Tbsp sugar
Dash of salt
Dash of cinnamon
Preparation:
Mix all ingredients and leave to rest 30 minutes. Cook in a frying pan without oil or butter for about 2 minutes each side.
My notes:
I cooked the red quinoa in chicken broth instead of water. I used 1 cup each cooked quinoa and flour and substituted sherry for port. I used way more than a “dash” of cinnamon and 1 T of vanilla instead of 1 t. They were delicious!
Bon appetit…
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Great post Elizabeth. I have “been there and done that” so many times and you made me crave it all so much. Now I have to go and cook some quinoa!
Your story is a wonderful example of how travel allows us to see the mundane (quinoa) become the sublime (quinoa pancakes). Love the humor too.
I just arrived back from 28 days of touring South America and can still taste the Quinoa pancakes at the Inkaterra Hotel . I was so busy taking photos of the dining wall I didn’t ask for the recipe! Still dealing with jet lag I decided to ” Google” and found your site. We ate delicious caramel quinoa at their restaurant too. On Lake Titicaca we had amazing Quinoa soup as part of our Trout lunch , I did get a rough recipe for that, most important to cook.the quinoa in water no salt, then add to the soup made of onion garlic carrot pumpkin and green beans with sliced potatoes added at the end of cooking. Yum, happy cooking!
Great hearing from you, Jacquie, and I love that you also enjoyed the quinoa pancakes at the Inkaterra Hotel. Thanks for the tip about the quinoa soup. I requested – and received – a quinoa cookbook for my birthday recently and plan to work (cook) my way through it. Cheers!