Papa seca substitutes

The nearest thing you can buy, sold for camping, food storage and instant soup mixes.

Best for

carapulcra, stews, soups, braises

The pieces are the right size and they rehydrate into the same dense, slightly grainy, chewy bite that gives carapulcra its character, rather than dissolving into the sauce. What is missing is the deep toasted nuttiness papa seca gains from sun-drying, and you can recover most of it by dry-toasting the pieces in a hot pan for five to eight minutes until they smell like popcorn and turn a shade darker. Skip that step and the stew tastes like potato soup rather than carapulcra.

The genuinely correct substitute, since it is the same process on a domestic scale.

Best for

carapulcra, authentic Peruvian cooking, stews

Boil waxy yellow potatoes until just tender, cool, peel, cut into small cubes, then dry them in a low oven at around 70 C or a dehydrator until hard and rattling, which takes several hours. Pulse briefly in a food processor to crack rather than powder them, then toast in a dry pan. The result is very close indeed, marginally less intense than commercial papa seca because sun-drying does something an oven does not. It keeps for months in a jar and this is the route worth taking if you cook carapulcra more than once.

The fresh-potato route, which works if you accept that the texture will change and you commit to the toasting step.

Best for

carapulcra, stews, weeknight versions

Cut waxy potatoes into one-centimetre cubes, boil until barely tender, drain, dry them well, then fry in a little oil over high heat until browned on several sides. The browning is doing the work that drying and toasting do for papa seca. The stew comes out softer, creamier and looser than a real carapulcra, which is thick and chewy, so add a spoonful of potato flakes near the end to firm up the sauce. Use waxy potatoes, never floury baking potatoes, which will collapse.

A pantry item that matches the chewy, holds-its-shape quality papa seca brings to a long stew.

Best for

carapulcra, stews, soups, pork braises

Texturally this is a good match, since hominy stays chewy through an hour of simmering and gives the same satisfying resistance. Flavour-wise it is unambiguously corn, sweet and nutty and lime-treated, so your carapulcra becomes a corn and pork stew. That is a nice dish, but it is not the same dish, and the toasted-potato flavour that defines carapulcra will be absent. Choose this when texture matters more to you than authenticity.

Another dried tuber that survives long cooking and thickens the sauce as it goes.

Best for

carapulcra, stews, braises

Holds shape beautifully and releases starch to thicken the stew, which is genuinely useful. It is sweeter and more neutral than potato and noticeably more fibrous, giving a stringy rather than grainy bite. Soak it, discard the soaking water and boil it until completely soft, since cassava should never be eaten raw or undercooked. Toast it dry beforehand if you can, which adds a welcome nutty note.

Not a substitute for the pieces, but the fastest way to get a stew with the right consistency.

Best for

thickening carapulcra, rescuing a thin stew, emergency versions

Papa seca thickens carapulcra as much as it fills it, and potato flakes deliver that thickening in two minutes. Toast the dry flakes in a pan first, which is a small trick that adds surprising depth. What you get is a thick, smooth, mashed-potato-textured stew with none of the chew, so this is best used alongside cubed toasted potato rather than on its own. Add it gradually off the heat, because it thickens fast and cannot be undone.