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Market Stall · Beef & Corn Stew

Espesado Chiclayano

Espesado Chiclayano — street food from Lambayeque, Peru
📷 Closely related photo — Photo: MiguelAlanCS / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

The soup's herby green color comes from an entire bunch of fresh culantro, a stronger flat-leaf cousin of cilantro, blended directly into the broth.

Beef, ground corn, squash and culantro are simmered into a thick, hearty stew. Market cooks in Chiclayo ladle it out for lunch alongside white rice.

Why it's made this way: Espesado draws on Lambayeque's culantro-heavy seasoning style and locally milled corn, both hallmarks of the region's coastal-desert cuisine.
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Part of World of Street Food — 690 dishes from 118 countries. Something wrong here? Tell us in the comments below. Photo credits.