Silpancho

Silpancho (original Quechua word: Sillp'anchu) is a typical, popular Bolivian food from the city of Cochabamba. When prepared properly, this tends to be an extremely huge and very filling meal that doesn’t exactly skimp on carbohydrates or fats. In fact, it’s not a dish for dieters, as they might faint at the sight of its pretty extensive ingredient list and the size of the dish. It consists of a base layer of rice, usually white, followed by another layer of boiled and sliced potatoes. Next, a thin layer of schnitzel-style meat is laid on top, followed by another layer of chopped tomato. In addition, onion, beet and parsley are mixed together and topped with either one or two fried eggs.

A few variants of silpancho recipes exist. Sometimes the meat over the rice is diced and cooked instead of being left in steak form, but this is much less common. Another variant is to place pico de gallo on top of the eggs instead using the parsley, onion and beet topping. Other recipes stray from the traditional by recommending placing the meat in a marinade that includes ingredients like soy sauce.

Adding salsa or marinating meat aren’t authentic but the dish is not heavily spiced and some may find it lacks flavor in its original form. This is obviously not true for all people and many enjoy silpancho just as is. It’s one of the best-known Bolivian foods, and one that people will look for when they dine at South American or Bolivian restaurants.

In areas outside of South America there aren’t very many Bolivian restaurants to find. It is possible to find a few in major cities like New York, Washington DC, and a few other places scattered across the states. There may be other reasons people search for Bolivian food too, besides finding silpancho. In particular meat pastries called saltenas have become very popular in some parts of the US.

It also can be found in a type of sandwich called "Trancapecho", containing all the ingredients(even rice).