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).
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 transluscent 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.