2013 Kitchen Goal- Aji de Gallina

I had the pleasure of living in Dallas for a year after college while I was doing my internship. While there my roommate Amanda and I had a friend, Anthony, who was from Peru. He and his brothers worked at a Peruvian restaurant called Alo. Amanda and I frequented Alo often because we loved a particular dish they had called Aji de Gallina.

Since leaving Dallas, I have always wanted to try my hand at making Aji de Gallina. I never did, so I decided to put it on my list of things to do in the kitchen in 2013.

Each year our takes one of the countries in which we support missionaries and has a potluck meal based on that countries food.  This January we were informed we would be having a Peruvian potluck. I, of course, knew exactly what I would bring.

Although I had experienced this dish multiple times, I had no idea how to make it. So, I went to Google. I discovered that there are many variations of this traditional Peruvian dish. Therefore, I combined several recipes to make the dish as I remembered it.

The recipe calls for Aji Amarillo (yellow chile pepper). I really did not know where to get this. I decided to try Whole Foods first because it is close. If that was a bust, I was going to go to a Mexican grocery store. Whole Foods came through. Although they did not have fresh Aji Amarillo, they had dried. After talking with an employee who seemed to know what she was doing, I felt confident this would be ok to use.

It ended up being ok to use, however, if you are going to use these dried peppers make sure that you soak them in hot water first. Additionally, you will need a pretty good food processor to chop them up. I actually discovered that putting them into the food processor was unsuccessful. As you will see the recipes requires you to boil and then puree a carrot. When you do this with the aji, the aji does puree.

RECIPE

Boil 4-6 chicken breasts, 1 carrot, and 1 onion in chicken broth. Simmer for about 45 minutes or until chicken is easily shredded.

Once done, take carrot and 3 (or more if you want spicier) dried aji peppers that have been soaked in hot water according to package. Puree these together in a food processor. Add onion and puree it in the mix as well.

Heat 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil in large skillet. Add carrot, onion, aji paste to skillet and heat over low. Add 1/4 teaspoon of tumeric (note: at this point the mixture is very orange and you think there is no way it will end up yellow like it is supposed to be. no worries, it will end up yellow).

Add 1 can of evaporated milk to large skillet and combine. Once combined, add shredded chicken.

In food processor (that you have cleaned from previous use), combine 1/2 loaf of crustless white bread with ~1 1/2 cups milk. Add the mixture to chicken sauce. Stir over medium low heat for about 10 minutes until the sauce is thick and creamy.

Add 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese and stir in.

Serve over rice. 

I feel like the above picture does not do the completed product justice. The recipe is supposed to be served over rice, but because I was taking it to a potluck, I mixed in the rice. Additionally I think I mixed in too much rice so the complete product was not as creamy as desired. Plus it is just not a good picture in general! I realized on the way to church that I had no taken a picture of it, so I snapped a quick picture of it in the crockpot in the car (note: I only used the crockpot to transport it).

Ideally you would serve this dish with yellow potatoes that have been lightly fried + an olive. Apparently this dish is also served with a hard boiled egg.