Silpancho

Ingredients

Beef

• 4thin slices of beef topside or rump, about 120 g each
• 2garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 tspground cumin
• 1½ tsp salt
• 1 tspblack pepper
• 200 gfine dry breadcrumbs
• 6 tbspvegetable oil, for frying

Base

• 300 glong-grain rice, rinsed
• 600 mlwater
• 1 tspsalt
• 600 gwaxy potatoes, boiled in their skins, peeled and cut into 1 cm slices
• 4 tbspoil, for frying the potatoes

Salad (ensalada cruda)

• 2tomatoes, finely diced
• 1onion, finely diced
• 1locoto chilli, seeded and finely diced
• 2 tbspflat parsley, chopped
• juice of 1 lime
• 1 tspsalt
• 1 tbspoil

To top

• 4eggs
• 2 tbspoil, for frying

Directions

1. Cook the rice in the salted water, covered, on the lowest heat for 18 minutes, then rest 5 minutes and fork through. Keep it warm.
2. Rub the beef slices with garlic, cumin, salt and pepper, then lay each between two sheets of plastic and pound with a mallet or rolling pin until it is 3 mm thick and roughly twice its original width. It should be almost transparent at the edges — silpancho means thinned meat.
3. Press each pounded slice firmly into the breadcrumbs on both sides. In Cochabamba the meat is pressed into dry crumbs alone, with no egg or flour, so the crust stays thin and slightly patchy.
4. Mix the salad: tomato, onion, locoto, parsley, lime, salt and oil. Leave it to sit 10 minutes so the onion softens.
5. Fry the boiled potato slices in oil over medium-high heat for 6–8 minutes, turning once, until golden and crisp at the edges. Drain and salt.
6. Heat the 6 tbsp of oil in a large frying pan until shimmering. Fry each breaded slice for 60–90 seconds a side only, until the crust is golden. Any longer and the thin beef turns to leather.
7. Fry the eggs in the remaining oil so the whites are set and crisp-edged and the yolks still liquid.
8. Build the plate in strict order: a flat bed of rice, the fried potato slices spread over it, the breaded beef laid over the whole surface so it covers the plate, then the fried egg on top.
9. Spoon the raw salad over the egg and around the edge, and serve at once with hot sauce on the side. The plate is eaten by cutting down through all the layers at once.

Technique

• Silpancho is Cochabamba’s signature plate and the layering is fixed: rice, potato, meat, egg, salad. Serving the components side by side would make it a different dish.
• The beef must be pounded genuinely thin and cooked fast and hot. This is a dish about texture — a wide, crisp, thin sheet of meat covering the whole plate.
• Dry breadcrumbs without egg wash is the authentic coating and gives a much lighter crust than a schnitzel-style three-stage breading.
• The raw tomato-onion-locoto salad is not a garnish; its acid and heat cut the fried starch underneath and it goes on last, over the egg.

Substitutions

• No locoto: a red jalapeño or half a red chilli plus a spoon of ají amarillo paste gives a similar fruity heat.
• Veal or pork loin, pounded the same way, is used in some Cochabamba restaurants and cooks even faster.

Variations

• Trancapecho, the sandwich version: the whole silpancho stuffed into a marraqueta roll, sold late at night.
• Silpancho with a second egg, or with the meat cut into strips and mixed through the rice, which is the home leftovers version.

History

Cochabamba dish of pounded breaded beef over rice and potato with a fried egg, credited to Celia La Fuente Peredo in the 1950s.

Frequently asked questions

What is Silpancho?

Silpancho is a main from Bolivia: thin breaded beef over rice and potatoes with fried egg, Cochabamba. Cochabamba dish of pounded breaded beef over rice and potato with a fried egg, credited to Celia La Fuente Peredo in the 1950s.

How long does Silpancho take to make?

Silpancho takes 35 min of preparation and 40 min of cooking. The recipe makes 4 servings. It is rated medium to make.

What can I substitute in Silpancho?

Yes, within limits. No locoto: a red jalapeño or half a red chilli plus a spoon of ají amarillo paste gives a similar fruity heat. Veal or pork loin, pounded the same way, is used in some Cochabamba restaurants and cooks even faster.

What is the most important thing to get right in Silpancho?

Build the plate in strict order: a flat bed of rice, the fried potato slices spread over it, the breaded beef laid over the whole surface so it covers the plate, then the fried egg on top.