MONDO DINNER GUEST COOK: RODRIGO PALACIOS AND HIS CAUSA

MONDO DINNER GUEST COOK: RODRIGO PALACIOS AND HIS CAUSA

Causa, sometimes called Causa Limeña or Causa Peruana is a popular Peruvian dish. It’s basically a cold potato salad that can be presented in many different ways, like molded individually in ring molds or pressed into a terrine in loafs pans lined with plastic wrap and filled with almost anything that can be served cold. The most common fillings are seafood like shrimp or tuna salad or cold chicken salad, with mayonnaise as binder. After molded is usually plated over a bed of lettuce and decorated with mayonnaise, boiled eggs, avocado and black olives. While visiting us, our good friend Rodrigo Palacios, AKA Palace prepared a delicious Causa for us one night. This is his version of the recipe.

INGREDIENTS
2 lbs of yellow potatoes, peeled and diced
3/4 cup of Aji Amarillo in paste*
1/4 cup of lime juice
1/3 cup of vegetable oil
Salt

FILLING AND DECORATION
1 lb  large cocked and peeled shrimp
3/4 cup of mayonnaise, preferably home made
1 large avocado
2 hard boiled eggs
1/ cup of pitted black olives
Lettuce leaves

1. Starting with cold water, boil potatoes until soft. While still hot, drain, place in large bowl and mash. add all of the Aji amarillo paste, the lime juice, a t.sp. of salt and the oil and mix until is a uniform yellow mash.

2. In a loaf mold lined with plastic wrap in a big enough piece that you still have plastic hanging out that can be used to cover the mold when done.  For the bottom layer  use  half  of the cooled potato mix and press down with fork or hands to make it even flat. Now for the filling, place over the potatoes a layer of the cocked shrimp, using most of them (about 3/4 lb and reserve remaining for decoration). Use 3/4 of the avocado, sliced on this layer. Reserve the rest for decoration.

3. Now top this with the remaining potato mix. Lightly press down again.

4. Cover with the hanging plastic and refrigerate at least one hour.  It can be made several hours in advance.

5. When ready to serve,  place some lettuce leaves, whole or chopped over a platter and unmold  the loaf removing plastic wrap.

6. To decorate: On top, place alternated slices of hard boiled egg, shrimp, avocado and mayonnaise rosettes (using a decorating pipe) with a olive on top of each mayonnaise mound.

*Aji amarillo, is very common ingredient in South America, but very hard to find here in NY. Its a mild to hot yellow pepper that is used fresh, steeped in boiling water and pureed in a blender wit a little oil and salt. To substitute this, Palace used a yellow bell pepper and one whole habanero pepper, chopped roughly and steeped in a cup of boiling water for 5 minutes, then pureed in the blender for a minute.