Ají de Gallina
What is sauce for the goose may be sauce for the gander but is not necessarily sauce for the chicken, the duck, the turkey or the guinea hen.
- Alice B. Toklas
Buenos Aires – I’ve been promising on and off since our trip to Perú that I’d share a step-by-step how-to for ají de gallina, or chicken (traditionally hen) in a spicy yellow chili pepper sauce – one of our favorite dishes. So, follow along with Maria, Henry’s sister, as she demonstrates making it at home…
Remove seeds and veins from fresh ají amarillo (here in Buenos Aires we end up having to reconstitute dried ones as the fresh simply aren’t available). [This has changed over the couple of years since this post was written and fresh ají amarillo are now pretty readily available.]
Put chilies in a pan of water, bring to a boil, cover, and let boil until soft.
In another pan, put chicken breasts, cover with water, bring to a boil, and let simmer until cooked through and soft enough to shred.
Wash potatoes, boil until cooked but not mushy (sliceable), cool, peel, and set aside. In the same pot, toss a few eggs to let them hard-boil. Let them cool and then peel and quarter them.
When the chilies are nice and soft, take them off the heat.
Peel the chilies and put in a blender. If you’re using dried chilies the peeling won’t be possible, just include the skin.
When the chicken is done, remove from the water, and let cool until you can handle it, then shred the meat into fine shreds.
This comes down to a “to taste” – in the blender with the chilies add a little fresh cheese (farmer’s cheese, or something like port salut), some chunks of stale bread, a handful of walnuts (you can leave these out if someone is allergic), and start it blending. Add milk while blending until you’ve got a thick, but smooth puree. I’ve seen recipes that use the chicken water instead of milk, and others that use evaporated milk or cream, this is just the way I’ve learned to make it. When we want it extra spicy we use the chili cooking water for at least a part of the liquid.
Saute finely chopped garlic and a white onion in olive oil until translucent and soft. Then add the pepper puree to this and continue cooking for a few minutes.
Add a little red chili powder or paste – more just to give the dish a vivid color than for additional spice.
Add the chicken and stir well to coat, turn the heat down to low and let simmer.
The sauce will thicken and get glossy after about 10-15 minutes (stir occasionally so it doesn’t burn). It’s ready to serve.
Serve over sliced potatoes, decorated with black olives and hard-boiled eggs. Rice on the side is optional, but usual.
I really was helping Maria cook, and learning to make this in between taking photos. We just posed her for the shots.
March 28th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
I’m stumped with ají amarillo. What is this and what, if anything, can I use in its place that I can find in the hinterlands of lilly white New England? The resulting dish looks sensational.
March 28th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
What a gorgeous dish! I’m going on a hunt for aji amarillo so I can make this. If I can’t find them in NYC, however, can you recommend a substitute chile?
March 28th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Well, let’s see, as far as I know it doesn’t have another name besides ají amarillo, or ají panca when dried – I guess in the U.S. they’re sometimes called Yellow Peruvian Chilies, more or less just a translation. I did a bit of an internet search and pretty much just come up with those names. It’s a fairly hot pepper – with a Scoville Rating of 30,000-50,000, which puts it around the same heat level as a cayenne pepper. It has a slightly smoky flavor that’s intensified in the dried version. I’ve seen them in New York, so it shouldn’t be a problem there, up in Ipswich, you’ll have to wing it – I simply don’t know. I guess you could just experiment with different peppers that are fairly hot and try them out – alot of it, of course, depends on how spicy you want the dish – it’s not a real spicy dish, it has a kick, but it’s tempered by the other ingredients.
March 28th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Thanks, Dan. I’m heading out now to the Ipswich Peruvian Chili Shop.
March 28th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
You know, I didn’t choose to live somewhere without a proper supply of chilies… if you were back in Manhattan where Homesick Texan is, you could just pop down to the Whole Foods Market and pick some up…
March 28th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
I’m not complaining. I can also afford to own a home AND eat on a regular basis where I live. Whole Foods is here, of course, just not in my town. But I’ll get those peppers one way or another.
September 19th, 2007 at 11:19 am
[...] combo. The dish was tasty, it was really quite good. It was, however, missing a key ingredient for ají de gallina – which you may remember from various writings I’ve done about Peruvian cuisine, is chicken [...]
March 25th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
[...] the past. The ají de gallina a wet pool of near flavorless sauce (for god’s sake, the sauce is supposed to be pureed medium hot peppers, what did they use, yellow bell pepper?) with the chicken and some rice. The seco de cabrito, too, [...]
June 9th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
[...] are so big that we should only order one or two for the three of us to share. We opt for two, an ají de gallina and a seco de cordero, each of which arrives as a fairly standard plate of food if not actually [...]
June 12th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
If you live in NY you can certainly find Aji Amarillo. There is a store on 8th ave in Chelsea that specializes in chiles. Also you can venture out to Jackson Heights, Queens. Take the #7 Train to 82nd St. station. Go down the stairway on the same side of the strret the train ran. One-third down the block is a market that sells the paste and the Aji Panca dried. Venture further down Roosevelt Ave and there are several Peruvian restaurants you can try. Visit a Colombian bakery in the area and try some Almojabanas or Pan de Yuca. These are breads made from one part starch (corn meal, corn starch, and in the case of Pan de Yuca just yuca starch, or manioc starch) and three parts cheese!!!! Yum!!! Jackson Heights deserves to be explored.
January 12th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
I had my very first Aji de Gallina last night at my Peruvian friend’s house.
It was DELICIOUS!!!
March 15th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
[...] my entree. It was an Ají de Gallina Lasagna, a brilliant sounding combination. First, the chicken dish is a favorite – shreds of chicken stewed in a spicy yellow pepper, cream, and cheese sauce. And [...]
April 11th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
[...] ideas. So, first off, made a batch of this savory and mildly spicy stewed chicken dish just the way Henry’s sister taught me. I made a batch of simple semolina pasta, though added in some dried herbs – basil, oregano, [...]
August 19th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
I hope you guys haven’t lost hope over the chile… I just discovered this site. My Peruvian husband and I are having a baby shower in a couple of weeks and Aji (ahh-he) de Gallina (Guy-eenuh) is on the menu because my mother in law is somewhat of an expert, having been born and raised in the Mountain Region of Peru. (Sorry to toot my horn, but I want you to know the info I have IS credible…) So the demo given by this lady is very traditional and looks just as though my “suegra” were making it. Oh and also, I used to live in New England before moving to So Cal… and it can be very hard to find things like Aji Amarillo up there unless you live near Boston or Hartford or NYC. It’s just really hard to find. It’s challenging to find here if you don’t know where to go. It can’t be found in Kroger or Albertsons or anything like that. Usually, they are found in Latin Markets because they are imported. Oh and the olives in Peruvian Cuisine are typically the purple Kalamata olive, which can be found in your normal grocer. One of the substitutes that the Peruvians use here are the Habanero, yup, that’s what I said—the same pepper used to make rocket fuel. Can we say beam me up, Scottie? So I would use a Habanero and no more because it’s HOT! You may be able to mix it with a yellow or Orange Bell Pepper for color and to lessen the heat. The word “Aji” is actually the word down in the hemisphere for “Pepper”. Not be rude to other Latinos, but my husband says that the word “Chile” is actually made-up and they don’t know what Chile’s are down in South America. He’s very blunt. Anyway- I hope this info was useful. If you are insistent in getting the Aji, try shopping online…
August 19th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Julie – thanks for your input. Down here, the name is pronounced “akhi de gazhina” might be the closest way to write it – it changes depending on what part of the Spanish speaking world you’re in.
As to the peppers, your husband is, well, wrong – even if he likes to be blunt about it. Chili or chilie is a perfectly good word in modern day Spanish – it is adopted from the Náhuatl language where it refers to the group of peppers that are found in the area of that culture – while meanwhile ají comes from the Taino language of the Carribean – both of them are adopted, neither is traditional to Spanish. Most of the peppers found in Perú, Bolivia, Ecuador and surrounds are of the aji family, while most of the peppers found in the north part of Central America and Mexico belong to the chili family. They’re just different species and varieties of peppers. In other parts of the Spanish speaking world they are called, variously, pimiento, guindilla, morrón, peperonchino and capsicum (the last of which being the traditional Latin).
The common species of chili peppers are:
- Capsicum annuum, which includes many common varieties such as bell peppers, paprika, cayenne, jalapeños, and the chiltepin
- Capsicum frutescens, which includes the tabasco and Thai peppers
- Capsicum chinense, which includes the hottest peppers such as the naga, habanero, Datil and Scotch bonnet
- Capsicum pubescens, which includes the South American rocoto peppers
- Capsicum baccatum, which includes the South American aji peppers
August 20th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Dan, Aji de gallina is my favorite food! I’ve been looking everywhere for aji amarillo so i can make it at home. can you tell me the name of the stores in chelsea and jackson heights you referred to above? thank you sooooo much!
August 21st, 2009 at 1:11 am
Sarah, I’m not the one who said the bit about Jackson Heights/Chelsea – I live in Buenos Aires, so unfortunately, I can’t really help you there. I do recall some latino markets along 9th Avenue within a block or two of the back of Port Authority, but I can’t do much better than that. These days, however, at least prior to leaving NYC some years ago, you could buy these peppers at places like Whole Foods, at the Union Square Greenmarket, and probably at a good number of other markets – you really didn’t need to go to a specialty one anymore. That may have changed, but I’d think it’d change towards easier rather than harder to find….