Ajiaco bogotano

Ingredients

• Chicken breasts on the bone800 g
• Small yellow potatoes500 g
• Waxy potatoes — in rounds400 g
• Floury potatoes — in large pieces400 g
• Corn on the cob — halved3
• Dried guascas3 tbsp
• Spring onion4
• Coriander6 sprig
• Cream200 ml
• Capers4 tbsp
• Avocado2
• Saltto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Poach the chicken in two and a half litres of water with the spring onion and coriander for forty minutes. Lift it out and shred it; strain the broth.

   45 min

2. 2

   Return the broth to the pot, add the small yellow potatoes and cook twenty minutes, until they collapse entirely and thicken the soup.

   22 min

3. 3

   Add the other two potato varieties and the corn and cook twenty minutes more.

   22 min

4. 4

   Add the guascas five minutes before the end: boiled long, they turn bitter.

   6 min

5. 5

   Return the chicken, season, and serve with bowls of cream, capers and sliced avocado on the table.

   5 min

About the dish

The three potato varieties are not for variety's sake. Small criolla collapses entirely and thickens the broth, sabanera holds its shape, pastusa sits in between. One variety gives you either a cloudy mash or a clear soup with cubes in it.

Guascas, an Andean herb tasting somewhere between artichoke and chamomile, is the one ingredient with no substitute. Without it you have a good potato soup, but not an ajiaco.

The capers and cream are served apart and added at the bowl. Their acidity and richness are set by the eater rather than the cook.

Worth knowing

• — The soup should be thick enough that a spoon stands with reluctance, but not like purée. If it is thin, cook it longer and the small potatoes will finish the job.
• — Guascas are sold dried in Latin American shops and online. Replacing them with oregano or anything else is pointless — the flavour is nothing alike.
• — The corn is eaten with the hands straight from the bowl. It is part of the dish rather than a decoration in the broth.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

520 kcal

Protein

38 g

Fat

20 g

Carbs

48 g

More from Colombia

• Arepas — Cakes of precooked corn flour, griddled and split open to be stuffed.