Peruvian avocado halves stuffed with herbed chicken salad, lime mayonnaise and black olives
Origin: Lima, Peru
From the journey of Avocado.
Palta rellena (stuffed avocado) is the dish that most clearly demonstrates how completely the avocado became a native of Peruvian cuisine after its arrival from Mesoamerica in the sixteenth century. The word palta has entirely replaced aguacate in everyday Peruvian Spanish (and in Chilean and Bolivian Spanish), taken from the Quechua name of the Palta people of southern Ecuador, through whose territory the fruit most likely entered Andean South America. The avocado was absorbed not just linguistically but conceptually: in Peru, it is not a Mexican import but simply an ingredient that has always been here. Palta rellena belongs to the tradition of Peruvian huancaína cooking: a style of satisfying, composed cold dishes that make use of Peru's extraordinary potato and avocado abundance. The avocado half becomes a bowl, its cavity filled with a creamy, herb-bright mixture of poached chicken, lime mayonnaise, and vegetables, then topped with the garnishes that define the Peruvian table: hard-boiled egg, black Botija olives, and a scatter of fresh herbs. The dish requires almost no cooking: a poached chicken breast, a shaken jar of lime mayonnaise, an avocado at the precise point of ripeness, and produces something that looks considerably more elaborate than the effort it demands. It is found on the menus of Lima's grandes cevicherías as a starter, and on the tables of Peruvian home kitchens as a weekday lunch that takes twenty minutes and asks very little of the cook.
Palta rellena is endlessly adaptable: the chicken filling can be replaced with tuna mayonnaise (atún con mayonesa), prawn salad, or a vegetarian filling of palm hearts, sweetcorn, and diced tomato. In Lima, it is often served on a bed of sliced tomatoes with shredded iceberg lettuce. The avocado must be perfectly ripe: yielding but not mushy, the flesh uniformly green without browning. In Peru, Botija olives are the standard; their meaty, mild flavour is less aggressively salty than Kalamata, though Kalamata is an excellent substitute.
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