Anticuchos a la Ultima (Skewered Marinated Mutton Kidneys)

History

Anticuchos are, at their core, small pieces of marinated meat threaded on a skewer and grilled quickly over a lively fire — a preparation documented as originating in the Andes in pre-Columbian times, where the inhabitants of the Inca Empire already cooked meat on sticks over the flames. The name is read as Quechua: anti, the eastern Andean region, and kuchu, 'cut.' The form most identified with the dish today is anticuchos de corazón, skewered beef heart seasoned with ají panca and other chilies — a version food historians attribute to Afro-Peruvian cooks of the colonial coast, who were handed the cattle offal that landowners discarded and made it edible by joining the Andean habit of seasoning with native peppers to Spanish garlic, cumin, vinegar and salt drawn from the hacienda kitchens.

Gorriti's book carries the skewer under two very different names, and neither uses beef heart; together they show the anticucho idea applied to whatever meat a kitchen favored. 'Anticuchos á la última,' sent from Buenos Aires by Elina A. de Almeyra, is the more orthodox: mutton kidneys are pricked, soaked in salted water, then steeped two hours in an adobo of oil, vinegar, pepper, ground garlic and powdered ají mirasol — the dried yellow Andean chili — before being halved, threaded with slivers of fresh bacon on a thin wooden asador, and grilled over a lively fire, basted with butter dipped in the marinade. The chili, the marinade, the wooden skewer and the fast fire are all faithful to the tradition, even as the offal shifts from heart to kidney. 'Anticuchos de tortolitas,' from Ester Castillo of Lima, keeps the name but not the method: the little turtledoves are simmered in beef broth, then buttered, rolled in breadcrumbs and browned in the oven, and served with a sauce of ají amarillo or English mustard — a dish that borrows the anticucho label for skewer-sized birds while trading the grill for the oven.

Both entries sit within a criollo kitchen that layered the Andes' own chilies over Spanish-introduced meats and techniques, and the ají amarillo and ají mirasol they call for are native American peppers, at home in an 1890 South American book rather than anachronisms. What neither contributor does is explain herself: no word says why she gave her dish the anticucho name, or whether she knew its coastal, Afro-Peruvian street-food lineage. By 1890 the skewer had clearly traveled far enough from its origins that a Lima cook could hang its name on oven-browned doves and a Buenos Aires cook on grilled kidneys, each without a note of explanation.

Ingredients

• mutton kidneys
• salt
• oil
• vinegar
• pepper
• garlic, ground
• powdered ají mirasol (dried yellow Andean chili); or ají colorado (red chili) where mirasol is unavailable
• fresh bacon, cut in very thin slivers
• butter

Instructions

1. Wash the mutton kidneys in cold water, prick them with a thick needle, and leave them half an hour in salted water.
2. Put them in a marinade of oil and vinegar, pepper, ground garlic, and powdered ají mirasol (or ají colorado where mirasol is unavailable).
3. After two hours in the marinade, split each kidney in half and mix with very thin slivers of fresh bacon.
4. Thread them onto a thin wooden skewer (asador) made for the purpose.
5. Grill over a lively fire, turning constantly and basting with butter (using a feather) dipped in a spoonful of the marinade.
6. They cook quickly; serve very hot.