Peruvian-style Christmas dinner
In Peru as in many other countries, the most important and therefore the most popular celebration is Christmas, because the majority of the population is Christian. It is customary for people to meet with the closest family to wait for 12 at night and exchange gifts.
The Christmas dinner is one of the main moments in this celebration where we remember the birth of Jesus. Thus, the Christmas dinner is a real banquet, which is generally the best of the year prepared in the heat of the home.
While the tradition at Christmas is true is to eat stuffed turkey , this is a custom that was adopted in Peru and originated in the American tradition of Thanksgiving.
There are many people who think that turkey meat is not very tasty, but that due to the famous stuffing and the different accompaniments at dinner, they can enjoy it. However, there are other people who prefer to replace the turkey with the tasty baked pork meat. It is for this reason that turkey or pork are excellent main course options for the traditional Christmas dinner.
Baked Stuffed Turkey
The whole turkey is macerated with a mixture that contains orange juice, hot pepper, ground garlic, salt, a little pisco, rosemary, blond sugar, lemon juice and Sillao. It is baked for several hours with a filling consisting of ground pork (pork), ground beef, garlic, onion, breadcrumbs, peppermint, pisco, nutmeg, salt and pepper. All these ingredients give turkey meat a delicious flavor and lots of juice.
baked pigglet
A leg of piglet seasoned with salt and macerated with garlic, onion, panca pepper, chili pepper, yellow pepper, vinegar, mustard and then taken to the oven for a few hours depending on the weight of the pork leg is used.
Apple puree
It is customary to use green apples because they are acidic, that after peeling them and being put in a saucepan over low heat, with water, sugar, cinnamon and butter, they are crushed until the desired consistency is achieved.
Mashed sweet potato
It is another option to the classic applesauce that is eaten at Christmas. It is prepared with yellow sweet potato and blond sugar, orange juice, cinnamon, butter and nutmeg.
Gardener rice
Peru is a rice country, so it is essential in the most important dinner of the year. Rice to the gardener is a style of preparing the rice very popular in Peru, it has peas, chopped carrots, shredded corn (corn), chopped beans, chopped pepper, tomato paste, garlic.
Christmas rice
This rice is very rich and has thin slices of bacon, chopped onion, ground garlic, cinnamon, almonds, roasted and chopped pecans or pecans, spinach leaves cut into julienne and pepper.
Christmas salad
Salad is important at Christmas to balance dinner since you usually eat a lot of meat. A rich salad for the occasion is based on cabbage, apples, carrots, pineapple in syrup, grapes, walnuts, almonds and yogurt.
Panetón
It is a deeply rooted custom in Peru for the Christmas season, it was brought by the Italians in the 60s and it has become so popular that the panetón is not only consumed at Christmas, but throughout the year. It is common to see people walking with their panettone around the city on Christmas Eve. As the name implies is a large sweet bread, which contains raisins and candied fruit, it is usually purchased in bakeries and supermarkets, but some people usually prepare it at home. A variation of the panetón is quinoa based on quinoa.
Hot chocolate
It is the traditional accompaniment of the panetón at Christmas dinner. A hot cup of chocolate accompanied by a slice of panettone is inevitable. The tradition of chocolate and panetón continues at breakfast in the morning of December 25.
