Lenguado A Lo Macho

Woot! Represent!

This recipe for flounder filet, mixed shellfish and rice from our "The Art of Peruvian Cuisine" book looked beautiful and seemed like the perfect choice to celebrate our 1 year anniversary dinner.  Everyone is occasionally fooled by an attractive recipe photo which turns out to be disappointing but even more occasionally, you hit a home run.   Lenguado A Lo Macho was a grand slam that had Elizabeth and me literally moaning, mouths full, with exclamations of gustatory happiness.

OMG MAKE THIS DISH!

Ok, I'm collected now.  The amounts listed below say they serve four people.  We halved everything to serve two and ended up with a fair amount of leftovers.  Otherwise we followed the recipe exactly.

Yes, that is a lot of crap

• 4 flounder fillets (1/2 lb or 200g each)
• 3/4lb mixed raw seafood (we used shrimp, calamari, and scallops)
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 medium red onions, chopped fine (this seems nuts at one point but have faith, it works out)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tsp white flour
• 2 oz (1/4 cup) dry white wine
• 1 cup chicken consomme (we use bullion to make a very strong broth)
• 1/2 cup cream
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk
• 1 1/2 tbsp paprika or cayenne (we did 50/50 and it was very spicy but still edible and delicious.  Use that as a reference point to calibrate for your tastes)
• 1 tbsp finely chopped cilantro
• 1/2 tsp rocoto paste (this can be purchased pre-made at any well stocked Latin market, Spanish Table in Pikes Place for example.  We used the very common Goya brand.)
• 1 red bell pepper, peeled and diced (we forgot to peel it and this ingredient was still the surprise hit of the dish.  Do Not second guess the instructions to put this in at the very end, leaving it essentially uncooked)
• Pinch of dry oregano
• 2 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
• Salt & Pepper

Aside from the epic shopping trip and driving around looking for rocoto paste, the recipe from here out is quite simple.  Because I get "new complicated dish anxiety" and because I'm a neat freak, we chopped everything in advance and created little bowls with each group of ingredients so each step listed below basically amounted to "dump little bowl into pan, wait, proceed to next step".

Step 2

Step 1: Prepare the base for the sauce and bigger veggies

 Saute onions, garlic, oregano, paprika (and/or cayenne) in butter until the onions are translucent and turning brown.  This will seem like a ton of onions but diced finely they will basically turn into a paste by the time the recipe is finished.

Step 2: Thicken the sauce

Add tomato and flour and cook for another 2-3 minutes.

Step 3: Reduce

Add wine and simmer until nearly all the liquid has evaporated.

Step 4 - Shrimp, too soon.

Step 4: Cook

Add consomme and bring to boil.  Add cream, evaporated milk and seafood then cook until seafood is opaque.  Probably about 3-4 minutes.  We actually thought the scallops ended up a little overcooked waiting for the shrimp so we recommend putting the shrimp in for a couple minutes first before adding scallops and calamari.

Step 5: The filets!

This was pretty simple.  Just fry in a skilled in butter until they are opaque.  We didn't add any seasoning except the butter.

Step 6 - Raw peppers at the end?? YES!

Step 6: Final ingredients

Return to heat and stir in salt, pepper, rocoto paste, red pepper and cilantro.

To serve just top the filet with the sauce, add rice and enjoy!   The result is a blend of spicy seafood with fresh flavors and the crisp texture of uncooked cilantro and peppers that works surprisingly well together.  It is crazy good!  Be sure to have lots of baguette to go around so you can sop up every last bit of sauce.

1st anniversary FTW!

Notes:

• Rice - There is an "A la Peruana" rice recipe that we totally ignored since we already had some very good rice on hand.  Anything that doesn't have a complicated taste of its own should be fine.  If you really want to do this dish properly, here is a recipe I found.
• Flounder - Super expensive.  For two, this dish ended up costing us about $40 and the one big opportunity we saw was to replace flounder with Tilapia or any other inexpensive white fish.  As long as it is moist and simple it will make a great base.  The sauce carries this dish, the fish is just along for the ride.

This is about when we got excited.  It doesn't look like dog food!!

-Steve