Recipe for How to Make Chicken Causa

A classic potato dish in Lima is “causa” which translates as the “cause” or fight.  But, it can also mean “buddy.”  I took some photos while a buddy of mine and her mom made “artisanal” causa… as in homemade (which is one of the points that mega-phone of Peruvian cuisine, Gaston Acurio champions, although you can follow his recipe here). It took them more than three hours.  Here is the recipe (sort of) as the grandma making the dish doesn’t use measurements (hence the artsy part of this) and it took so long that I went off to take a nap.

4 large chicken breasts

24 large Peruvian Yellow potatoes

a cup of celery

a large carrot

2 white onions

yellow Peruvian chili paste

salt & pepper

2 avocado

4 tomatoes

red pepper

parsley

pitted black olives

1. Cook the chicken in water with chopped onion, celery, and carrot, and a pinch of salt (large pieces are fine). Boil until chicken breasts are cooked (40 minutes). Pull out chicken breasts and let cool.
2. Boil yellow potatoes. When boiled, drain and peel as soon as you can as the peel is easier to remove when the potato is hot.
3. Remove the strings off the celery and chop very fine.
4. Chop half a white onion very fine.
5. Chop/pull the cooked chicken breast.
6. Mix the chicken meat with mayonnaise, salt, pepper, onions, and celery.
7. Crush by hand the cooked and peeled potatoes. Crush until they are smooth and have a creamy texture. Add olive oil, salt, pepper, lime juice, and chili paste. Keep tasting it until it tastes right.
8. In a large lasagna pan (or use a glass, whatever), build your causa. Bottom layer is potato, then the chicken salad, then avocado, then tomato, and then another layer of potato. Use a fork to make a design on the top and decorate with parsley, red pepper slivers, and black olives. Eat straight away or keep in fridge until it “settles” and gets even tastier.

There are other types of causa with crab, shrimp, egg, but chicken salad is typical in Lima. The Lima thing to do is to eat this as an appetizer and then follow with “aji de gallina” which is rice with stewed chicken, another classic dish from Peru.