This dish was made last Sunday at my house in Quito, Ecuador, where my family and I enjoyed a very nice evening. The menu consisted of roasted prawns with a naranjilla (a local exotic fruit) vinaigrette and a few glazed garden carrots in an orange-cumin sauce and puréed fava beans. It was all very simple to make.
Rodrigo Pacheco is a top-notch Ecuadorian chef who bases half his time in Quito and the other half in Banos, where he prepares meals made from fresh organic ingredients at Casa del Abuelo Art Hotel & Restaurant. He is also the executive chef at Cuisine Standard in Quito.
He has studied with some of the best, including Madrid Fusión in Spain, Alain Ducasse Formation in Paris, the Institut Paul Bocuse in Lyon, France, and the Instituto Inacap in Santiago, Chile among others.
He has done a Government Cultural Exchange in Canada and the Masters of Food and Wine tour of the world in Buenos Aires, Argentina,
representing Ecuador as an invited chef. Rodrigo was also a Culinary radio show host on Saberes y Sabores.
