is a Peruvian dish of rice and beans that is fried, formed into a flat oval shape and set under toppings such as steak or fried eggs. It is often eaten as a breakfast or as second course.
History According to culinary historian Maricel Presilla, food historians generally credit the dish's origins to enslaved Afro-Peruvians on Peru's northern coast during the colonial period. Food historian Andrew Dalby places in a class of rice and bean meals that emerged from rice and bean dishes brought over from Africa during the transatlantic slave trade, including gallo pinto in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, Moros y Cristianos in Cuba, and Arroz con gandules in Puerto Rico.
The notion that the dish was created as a way to use up the odd remaining ingredients is expressed in the word's etymology, being derived from "takuy", meaning "mix different things together."
Description is made by pan-frying rice and beans and shaping them into a flat oval, often with a wooden spoon. Over the top, toppings such as meat or eggs are added. Making is often seen as a way to use leftover rice and beans, giving it a reputation as an unpretentious dish.
The north is understood to specialize in the dish, though every region has its own version of tacu-tacu, often distinguished by the type of bean. An example is Piura, a city in northwestern Peru, where Canary beans are used. Meats topping different variations may include steaks, flattened out into a thin sheet that covers much of the dish, slices of beef tenderloin simmered in onions and tomato, or ripe plantains. Seafood versions (known ) are made by boiling beans, rice and seafood such as cuttlefish, octopus and prawns. After being flattened, steaks are sometimes breaded, in a version known as .
The way beans are used in is unusual in Peruvian cooking, with them more typically cooked in thick soups, served over rice. A similar dish called is eaten in Lambayeque, a region in the country's north.
Restaurants is served in restaurants across Peru, both casual and upmarket. Haute cuisine versions of are smaller than those in restaurants catering to a more general audience, and often have large amounts of seafood. Some examples of served as haute cuisine include a serving with salsa criolla and seared yellowfin tuna, or that of chef Pedro Miguel Schiaffino, who has at times served a lima bean with kid goat in the corn beer chicha de jora.
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