Traditional Food in Santa Cruz Bolivia

The following is a list which describes the most typical foods:
- Picante de Pollo (chicken in a hot salsa served with rice and yuca)
- Majao or Majadito (a rissoto style plate)
- Locro (a dense, rice based soup containing vegtables and chicken)
- Sopa de maní (soup made of cooked peanuts, crushed and boiled)

Typical Drinks
- Mocochinchi (sun dried peaches boiled with honey and clove)
- Somó (white corn based drink, served cold)
Chicha

Typical Pastries
- Cuñapé (yuca and cheese baked buns)
- Zonzo (yuca and cheese, boiled, mashd then baked or grilled)
- Empanada de arroz
- Empanada de queso
- Empanada de jigote
- Empanada de carne
- Bizcocho de trigo
- Masaco de plátano
- Masaco de yuca
- Arepa
- Salteña
- Queque

1 kgr.piece of meat
1/4 kg of cocktail frankfurts
1/4 kgr. of chorizo sausage
8 peeled potatoes
3 red onions
3 tomatoes
3 chillies
3 tablespoons of vinager
Salt

Preparation: Cut the meat in peices around 2 1/2 cm and fry with salt and pepper. Add the vinager. Separately, fry the chorizo, cut into circles. Lightly fry the contail franfurts. Cut the potatoes lengthways and fry. Make a salad of onion, cubed tomatoes, and seeded chillies. LIghtly dress with live oil. Mixt he meat, sausages, franfurts and potatoes. Serve and garnish with the onion salad.
Serves 4. Aproximately 550 Calories per serving

Mocochinchi is officially one of the favoured refreshments in Bolivia. It is a drink made from dried peaches, and includes the dried peach pit at the bottom of your glass.

If you are in Santa Cruz, you will find the dried "bolas", or peaches for ready sale in the supermarket or local mercado. In Sucre - you can find peaches dried and formed into a 2cm wide string, with meters and meters wound to form a giant ball.

If you are not in Bolivia - you will have to dry your own peaches (se instructions below) or use an alternative recipe we have provided below.

Recipe for Mocochinchi
Soak the dried peaches in water for around 4-5 hours, allow them to sufficiently rehydrate, until they seem as though the flesh will fall off the pit.

Add the water and peach balls (or dried peach) to a large saucepan. Add more water, sticks of cinnamon, a few cloves and sugar. Simmer on low until all the flavours have combined (around 1-2 hours).

Taste it - add more sugar as desired.

Each "casera" uses a basic recipe such as this to make their own version. It is always served super chilled, and often, a stronger version of the syrup is kept with the dried peach balls, and a more watered down verson is kept cold. It is then served by placing one dried peach in a glass with a scoop of the strong syrup, topped up with the weaker syrup.

Goodluck trying it! and let me know your final recipe in the guest book below!

1. Select the Fruit. Use only blemish-free peaches that are fully ripe but not overly ripe.

2. Prepare the Fruit.Wash, and peel the peaches. For authentic mocochinchi, keep the fruit on the pit. For quicker, easier drying, pit and slice the fruit. The smaller the pieces, the quicker they will dry. But keep all pieces uniform in size so they'll dry at the same time.

3. Pretreating. To preserve the color of the fruit, blanch or dip the fruit slices before drying them. There are several ways to do this.
Ascorbic acid dip (all fruits) - 2 tbsp ascorbic acid or 5 1-gram crushed vitamin C tabs and 1 quart water
- Pectin dip (peaches, berries, cherries)- Mix 1 box of powdered pectin with 1 cup water. Boil together for 1 minute, then add ½ cup sugar and enough cold water to make 2 cups.
- Honey dip (bananas, peaches, pineapples) - Mix 3 cups waters and 1 cup sugar. Heat and then add 1 cup honey. Stir well.
- Juice dip (peaches, apples, bananas) - Combine 1 quart pineapple juice, 1 quart lukewarm water and ¼ cup bottled lemon juice.

4.Oven Drying.
a) Place fruit directly on racks or first spread 100 percent cotton sheet or cheesecloth over oven racks. b) Preheat oven to 145 degrees, propping door open with wooden spoon to allow steam to escape.
c) Allow 4 to 12 hours to dry the fruit.
d) Food should be dry but pliable when cool. Test a few pieces to see if the batch is ready

5. Post Drying. Put food in a big dry open pot in a warm, dry, airy location. Stir once or twice a day for 10 days to two weeks.

6. Pasteurize. If you want to store the dried fruit for any great length of time, it is best to pasteurize the slices to destroy any insect eggs. To do this, when drying is complete, freeze the fruit for several days at zero degrees in a deep freeze (the freezer compartment of a refrigerator won't do), or heat in a 175 degree oven for 10-15 minutes

7. Storage. Store in airtight ziplock bags or glass containers kept inside paper bag to protect from light. Store in cool dry place. Since a refrigerator is cool and moist, keep the dried fruit there only in the heat of summer, but make sure the package is air tight.