Ají de gallina

Ingredients

• Chicken breast800 g
• Ají amarillo paste5 tbsp
• White bread4 slice
• Milk400 ml
• Walnuts80 g
• Parmesan60 g
• Onions2
• Garlic5 clove
• Turmeric1 tsp
• Potatoes — boiled600 g
• Eggs — hard-boiled4
• Black olives60 g
• Rice — to serve350 g
• Vegetable oil60 ml
• Salt and pepperto 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 breast in salted water for twenty minutes and pull it into fine threads by hand.

   30 min

2. 2

   Soak the crustless bread in the milk for ten minutes.

   12 min

3. 3

   Fry the onion and garlic until soft, add the ají paste and turmeric and cook five minutes.

   12 min

4. 4

   Blend the soaked bread with its milk, the walnuts and the fried onion until smooth.

   8 min

5. 5

   Return the mixture to the pan and cook it ten minutes on a low heat, stirring.

   12 min

6. 6

   Stir in the chicken and parmesan, season and warm it five minutes to the thickness of soured cream.

   8 min

7. 7

   Serve over boiled potato and rice, garnished with egg and olives.

   10 min

About the dish

Ají amarillo, the yellow Peruvian chilli, supplies the colour and a fruity heat. It is seeded and boiled three times in fresh water if a milder result is wanted.

The sauce thickens on bread soaked in milk. No flour is used: the bread gives a velvet quality a flour-based sauce does not.

The dish descends from a colonial adaptation of Spanish manjar blanco, a sweet dish of chicken with almonds and bread. Peru made it savoury and added its own chilli.

Worth knowing

• — The sauce thickens on cooling. Reheat it with milk rather than water, or the flavour thins out.
• — The chicken is pulled apart, not cut. A knife gives cubes, and what is wanted are threads that hold the sauce.
• — Ají amarillo is sold as a paste in jars. Fresh chillies are rare in Europe, and the paste is the norm here rather than a compromise.

Nutrition

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

Calories

680 kcal

Protein

48 g

Fat

30 g

Carbs

56 g

More from Peru

• Ceviche — Raw fish in lime juice with onion and ají. It marinates for minutes, not hours — longer and it is cooked through.
• Lomo saltado — Beef seared in a wok with onion and tomato, served with both chips and rice at once.
• Causa limeña — Layers of yellow potato purée with lime and ají, filled with chicken or tuna.