The Ecuadorean chef at Ikaro in La Rioja presents three ingredients from Ecuador's Amazon, which are "unknown, but have many gastronomic properties, making them superfoods".

Along with a photo of her grandmother, "who left us recently", chef Carolina Sánchez wound up the first talk at FéminAs 2022. From Ecuador, but now resident in Logroño, where she runs a successful business, Ikaro*, with her partner, Carolina homed in on cooking at a restaurant which moves around between three different types of cuisine: “Basque cooking, because that's where Iñaki is from - her partner, and also a chef - La Rioja, where we're located, and Ecuadorean cooking, because that's where I'm from". She focused on the last of these.

As a member of the Masterchef Ecuador jury panel, Sánchez has been visiting her country more often and more thoroughly recently, "familiarising myself with it more and discovering ingredients, particularly from the Amazon area, where it's the women who are tasked with preserving this culture". “Ecuador has an enormously rich gastronomy, which even the locals don't know about”. And even less so, about the environmental issues of the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador's biosphere reserve.

Sánchez has been promoting three products and preparations from that "incredible" Amazonian larder, which is boosting its presence on Ikaro's starters menu year by year. The first is “neapia", a yucca pasta fermented with Amazon chillies, "with a texture similar to "miso", which Amazon women work on for days, and now sell". She also makes something with another section of the yucca: grilled flat "casabe" bread. This produces quite a spicy result because of the chillies, "although they're also creating neapias with no chillies, "to adapt them to Western tastes. This is what happens to us at Ikaro …”, the chef admits.

Another Amazon product: macambo, "a cousin of cocoa" which is not suited to chocolate-making, which the women peel by hand, dry and toast, to round off a roll of marinated scallops with neapia pasta and scallop coral sauce. “Macambo - the chef claimed - "is a superfood, rich in Omega3 and proteins. “The ingredient of the future" which Ikaro has used in cold "ajoblanco" soup and desserts ... "has a wealth of possibilities".

Ecuador's first Michelin-starred chef finished off her talk with some sweet fare: "ishpingo", or "Amazon cinnamon", which she used in the goat yoghurt as the basis for a lemon ice cream with an infusion of "guayusa", an Amazon leaf with more antioxidants than green tea". More products to consider.

The chef, who was the congress with her partner to assist her, rounded off her talk with a proud defence of her native land: “I hope we've aroused your interest in a different land that has so much to give. Among others, "a superfood unknown even to the people of Ecuador". Remember the name: "macambo". And "guayusa", "neapia" and the rest.