How I Eat (a recipe)

So I enjoy just about everything that is put in front of me to eat here…I’m so lucky to be in a host family that serves such a variety of healthy (and meatless!) dishes. I thought I’d describe an especially awesome dish that I learned to make: relleno de achojcha (pronounced ah-CHOK-cha, if the K signifies a german “ch”). It’s sort of like chilies rellenos, but these are fried…mmmmmm J. The vegetable achojcha is not found in the U.S., but you could say it has sort of the texture of a pepper with a mildly cucumber/fresh veggie taste. Looks like a Hungarian wax pepper, but I don’t think it’s in the same family as peppers (still trying to figure out what it’s related to…).

So you start with steamed and hollowed out achojcha (no pic, sorry).

Fill with a mixture of campo cheese called quesillo (mild, soft, similar to ricotta, made locally—often in your own house, though ours came from a little ways down the road), cooked onion and tomato.

Fold up, dip in an egg-flour mixture.

Deep fry.

Blot off some of the oil, try not to eat too fast :).

For context, that day we ate the stuffed achojcha with steamed squash, fava beans (habas) and rice (DUH!).

Sorry all, don’t think you can find achojcha in the U.S….guess you’ll have to come visit some day to get to try it! Though I do think you can translate this nicely onto peppers.