Kispiña

The Aymara steamed quinoa breads of the Bolivian Altiplano, dense little cakes of quinoa flour and fat

Origin: The Bolivian Altiplano (Aymara highlands)

From the journey of Quinoa.

Kispiña (also kispiño) is one of the oldest quinoa preparations of the Andes, the steamed quinoa bread of the Aymara people of the Bolivian Altiplano and the shores of Lake Titicaca. Quinoa flour is moistened with water and a little fat, kneaded into small cakes shaped by hand, and steamed over a pot until firm and dense. The result is a sustaining, faintly nutty little bread that keeps well and travels well, and it was for centuries the portable food of the herders, travellers, and labourers of the high plateau, carried out to the fields and the pastures and eaten through the long cold days. The dish belongs to the salt-flat and lake country of the southern and central Altiplano, the home of the great Royal quinoa, and it is bound up with the festivals and the ritual calendar of the Aymara, made in quantity for celebrations and offerings. Its forms vary across the plateau, shaped into balls, cones, or flattened cakes, sometimes sweetened, sometimes plain, and given different names from valley to valley, but the essence is always the same: quinoa flour, fat, and the steam of the high-altitude pot. Kispiña is quinoa at its most ancient and most elemental, a bread made without an oven from the mother grain of the Andes, and it remains a living tradition of the Bolivian highlands, a taste of the plateau that predates the conquest by thousands of years.

Ingredients

  • 400 g quinoa flour (or quinoa ground fine)
  • 60 g lard or vegetable fat
  • 0.5 tsp salt (or 2 tbsp sugar, for a sweet version)
  • 180 ml warm water, approximately
  • aniseed or grated cheese, to flavour (optional, regional)

Method

  1. If using whole quinoa, rinse it well to remove the saponins, dry it, and grind it to a flour. Combine the quinoa flour with the salt (or sugar) and any optional flavouring in a bowl.
  2. Rub in the fat with your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
  3. Add the warm water a little at a time, kneading, until you have a firm, cohesive, slightly stiff dough that holds its shape.
  4. Shape the dough into small cakes, balls, or little cones, about the size of a small egg, pressing each firmly so it holds together.
  5. Set the shaped kispiña in a steamer basket lined with leaves or paper, spaced apart, and steam over simmering water for about 25 to 30 minutes, until firm and set through.
  6. Let them cool a little before eating. They are good warm or at room temperature, and keep for several days.

Notes

Kispiña keep well and were made as a travelling and working food; they firm up as they cool. Sweet versions add sugar and sometimes aniseed; savoury ones may have cheese worked in. Pure quinoa flour is gluten-free and gives a dense, crumbly bread; some modern cooks blend in a little wheat flour for a lighter texture, though this is not traditional.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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