Carapulcra

I was in the mall a couple of years ago and found a Peruvian restaurant that was serving oil and meat-free carapulcra. I suspect that the meat was simply pulled out for my serving....but, I tried making it today. I am fortunate to be able to do my shopping in a fairly large city, Austin, and was able to find the ingredients at a grocery store called Fiesta. Here it is:

1 15oz package of papa seca (freeze-dried potato chunks)
5 cups vegetable broth
2 T. minced garlic
1 chopped onion
1 T. cocoa powder
1/2 t. cumin powder
2 T. Aji Panca
3 T. Aji Amarillo
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 T. fat-free peanut butter powder

I soaked the papa seca in cold water for 2 hours. Then drained the potatoes, added everything else except for the peanut butter powder. I stirred it, heated until warm and bubbly, sprinkled the peanut butter powder on, and served with a side of steamed rice. The restaurant used white rice, I used brown. Many of the recipes I found online called for 1 cup of dry white wine, I left that out and increased the broth by 1 cup. The Aji Panca is a mild but very flavorful red chili paste. The Aji Amarillo is a medium and extremely flavorful yellow chili paste. The recipes I found were saying to blend the chilies with oil to make the paste, but the paste I ended up finding at Fiesta only has the chilies in it. I was prepared to buy the chili and make the paste myself. The yellow chili has a very unique flavor and I think it would be worth finding it when you make this. I looked online and it is very easy to find it at Amazon, among other places. The original recipes called for toasted finely chopped peanuts, but I didn't want the added fat, thus the peanut butter powder.