Mazamorra Morada — Peruvian purple-corn pudding

i. Origin & history

Purple corn is an ancient Andean crop, cultivated in Peru for millennia and depicted in pre-Columbian ceramics. The deep colour comes from anthocyanins concentrated in the kernels and cob, and both are used — the cob is boiled along with the kernels because it carries a great deal of the pigment and flavour.

Mazamorra as a word covers a broad Latin American family of thick, starchy puddings and porridges, and versions exist well beyond Peru. What distinguishes mazamorra morada is the purple corn base, and it is unambiguously Peruvian, particularly associated with Lima.

Its calendar association is specific. Mazamorra morada is eaten most in October, the Mes Morado — Purple Month — around the processions of the Señor de los Milagros, when the streets of Lima fill with purple. That the dessert is purple and the month is purple is a coincidence people enjoy rather than a causal link, but the association is firm, and it is sold from street carts in enormous quantities during the processions alongside turrón de Doña Pepa.

Combinado — a bowl half mazamorra morada, half rice pudding, served side by side — is a Lima institution and is worth knowing about, because ordering it is the normal thing to do. The contrast of the tart purple pudding against the sweet white one is the whole point.

ii. Extracting the colour, then setting the pudding

The recipe has two clearly separated stages, and treating them as one is the usual mistake.

The first stage is an extraction. Purple corn — kernels and broken cob together — is boiled in water with pineapple skin, quince or apple, cinnamon and cloves for a considerable time, typically forty-five minutes to an hour. This is not cooking the pudding; it is making a deeply coloured, aromatic liquid. The corn itself contributes almost nothing edible and is strained out and discarded along with the fruit skins and spices. Using the cob is not optional if you want the colour — much of the pigment is in it.

The second stage turns that liquid into a pudding. It is sweetened, dried and fresh fruit are added, and it is thickened with starch. Traditionally the thickener is chuño or sweet potato starch, which gives a distinctive slightly glossy, slightly elastic set; cornflour is the common substitute and gives a more matte, softer result.

The starch has to be handled correctly. It must be slurried with cold liquid first and then poured into the simmering base in a thin stream while stirring, or it will seize into lumps that never disperse. And it must be brought back to a simmer and held there for a minute or two after adding — starch that has not been cooked out tastes raw and chalky and will not set fully.

The last element is lime juice, added off the heat at the very end. This is what stops the pudding being flatly sweet, and it also brightens the colour. Added while the pan is still on the heat, the acidity can interfere with the starch set.

iii. Ingredients

Makes 8 servings · scroll the side panel to adjust

• 500 g dried purple corn
• 2 litres water
• 1 pineapple skin (from a fresh pineapple)
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 6 cloves
• 1 quince, quartered (optional)
• 200 g sugar
• 100 g dried prunes
• 100 g dried apricots
• 100 g raisins
• 60 g sweet potato starch (chuño) or cornstarch
• Juice of 2 limes
• Ground cinnamon to dust

Maíz morado is the essential ingredient and there is no substitute — it is sold dried in Latin American shops, sometimes as whole cobs, sometimes as loose kernels. If you can get cobs, use them; the pigment is concentrated there. Pineapple skin is traditional and is worth saving specifically for this, contributing acidity and aroma. Membrillo (quince) is classic; apple substitutes acceptably. Sweet potato starch gives the authentic glossy set, with cornflour as the common alternative. Dried fruit — prunes, dried apricots, guindones — go in at the end. Lime juice off the heat is not optional; without it the pudding is cloying.

iv. Method

1. Bring purple corn, water, pineapple skins, cinnamon and cloves to a boil; simmer 60 min until the corn has released its colour fully. Strain.
2. Return purple liquid to the pan. Add sugar, prunes, apricots, raisins; simmer 20 min.
3. Mix starch with 60 ml water; whisk into the simmering pudding; cook 5 min until thickened.
4. Off heat, stir in lime juice. Cool slightly.
5. Serve in shallow bowls dusted with cinnamon. Traditional service: half mazamorra, half arroz con leche, side by side.

v. Tips & common mistakes

• Boil the cob, not just the kernels. Much of the anthocyanin pigment is in the cob. Break it up and boil it with the kernels, then strain everything out. Kernels alone give a disappointingly pale result.
• Give the extraction proper time. Forty-five minutes to an hour at a steady simmer. This stage is making a coloured, aromatic liquid, and rushing it produces a thin, pale, under-flavoured base that nothing later can fix.
• Slurry the starch in cold liquid. Mix it smooth with a little cold water or reserved cooled liquid before adding, and pour it into the simmering pan in a thin stream while stirring constantly. Added dry it will lump irreversibly.
• Cook the starch out. Bring it back to a simmer and hold it there for a minute or two after the starch goes in. Under-cooked starch tastes chalky and the pudding will not set properly.
• Add the lime juice off the heat, at the end. It is what stops the pudding tasting flatly sweet, and it lifts the colour. Added while still cooking, the acid can interfere with the starch set.
• Stop while it is looser than you want. It thickens considerably as it cools. A pan that looks right when hot will be stiff and rubbery cold.

vi. Variations

Combinado — half mazamorra morada, half rice pudding in the same bowl — is the classic Lima service and is arguably the default rather than a variation. Chicha morada uses exactly the same purple corn extraction but is left unthickened and served as a drink, and many cooks make both from a single batch of liquid. Fruit varies: guindones (dried prunes), dried apricots, fresh pineapple and peaches all appear. Some versions include chunks of quince left in rather than strained. Across Latin America the broader mazamorra family includes maize and cassava puddings with no purple corn at all.

vii. Serving & storage

Mazamorra morada is served cold or at room temperature in bowls or cups, usually dusted with ground cinnamon. In Lima it is very often served as combinado, spooned into a bowl alongside rice pudding so the two sit in distinct halves — the tart purple against the sweet white — and eaten together. Street vendors sell it in plastic cups during the October processions.

It keeps for three or four days covered in the refrigerator and firms up considerably as it sits. If it has set too stiff, stir in a splash of water or of reserved purple corn liquid to loosen it back to a spoonable consistency. It does not freeze well — starch-thickened puddings separate and weep on thawing, giving a watery, grainy result. Make what you will eat within a few days, and consider reserving some of the extraction liquid unthickened to make chicha morada as a drink.

ix. More from Latin American

• Arroz Doce — Portuguese rice pudding
• Payasam — South Indian milk pudding
• Dulce de Leche — milk caramel
• Suspiro Limeño — Peruvian caramel cream
• Manjar Blanco — South American milk caramel
• Helado de Paila — Ecuadorian copper-bowl ice cream