Aji Amarillo Chicken Skewers w/ Aji Sauce

As far as the traditional food from Peru goes, I enjoy a good Causa and I'll never say no to a Saltado, particularly with lamb. My favorite Peruvian dish, however, is hands down aji de gallina: a flavorful chicken dish with a spicy yellow gravy which is made delicious and unique by the inclusion of the star of the dish: aji amarillo peppers. Aji is a type of chili from Peru which is of medium to high heat, depending on your tolerance (the pepper averages out at about 50,000 units on the Scoville scale). As its name suggests it is yellow as it grows and reaches an orange-ish yellow upon maturation. This dish is hearty, comforting and rich without being overly so. Traditionally the dish is made with bone-in, skin on chicken, which is simmered in chicken stock and aji amarillo paste until the chicken is fall off the bone tender. At some point cubed potatoes and sliced hard boiled eggs (big in Peruvian cuisine) are added and the sauce is thickened with breadcrumbs. Olives, particularly green ones, are popular in Peru and often included in this dish. I love for my husband's Peruvian relatives to show up to a family gathering with a delicious, aromatic pot of this dish. It was only a matter of time before I tried to make it at home. Of course me being me and this being grilling season, I had to put my twist on it. I felt grilling chicken thighs and quail eggs brushed with aji amarillo paste would lend a smokiness to the dish's rich and spicy flavor and I am very happy with how it turned out! Initially I had hoped to find really small new potatoes and pop them onto skewers, so I could pack a little more smoke flavor into my dish, but I could only find smallish Yukon Golds, so I parboiled them and finished them in the aji de gallina sauce, which I ended up preferring anyway, but I recommend the idea as something to play around with if you can find gold fingerling potatoes.

I cannot find fresh aji peppers here, so I make do quite nicely with aji amarillo paste. There is no substitute for it and I can order a jar of it online. One jar goes a long way and it can be used to spice up your chicken, pasta or potato salad, or in place of sriracha in any sauce.

Stay tuned to for an upcoming post on a traditional aji de gallina.

Grilled Aji de Gallina

Serves 4

1 1/2 lbs. boneless skinless chicken thighs, trimmed
2 cups low sodium chicken stock
3 Tablespoons aji amarillo paste, divided equally in two
1/4 cup breadcrumbs (preferably homemade)
1/2 cup milk
20 quail eggs
salt, to taste
pepper, to taste

1. Cover potatoes with water in a pot. Add salt. Bring to a boil and cook for about 8 minutes. Set aside to cool.
2. Cover quail eggs with water and when they have reached a simmer, swirl them around carefully but vigorously to ensure yolks will rest in the center of the egg. Bring to a boil and cook for 3 minutes. Set aside to cool.
3. Cut up chicken thighs into large bite sized pieces and thread them onto skewers. Peel eggs and thread them onto their own skewers, to avoid the risk of cross contamination.
4. In a small bowl add milk to bread crumbs.
5. In a large pot bring chicken stock, 1 1/2 Tablespoons aji paste, 1 cup water and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a simmer and add potatoes.
6. Mix water into the remaining 1 1/2 Tablespoons of aji paste to form a slurry. Baste chicken and egg skewers with aji paste slurry. Salt skewers to taste.
7. On a charcoal grill over medium high heat, cook the chicken skewers for 4 -5 minutes per side (or until cooked through) and egg skewers for 2 - 3 minutes per side (or until they develop some lovely grill marks.
8. As the skewers are cooking add milk and breadcrumbs to the chicken stock and aji paste mixture in the pot. Reduce heat to the laziest simmer and when the skewers are ready the sauce will have thickened.
9. Serve over long grain rice and garnish with sliced green olives.

Beer Onion Relish and Lemon Thyme Butter New Potatoes (BBQ Dishes Part Two and Three)

I posted part one of this bbq dish series last year during grill season and I'm only finally getting around to posting it! The onion beer jam makes a fantastic hostess/host gift, but only if you're making it within 48 hours of gifting. I'm hoping one of these days I'll find a recipe that can be preserved in mason jars, but for now the possibility of the wrong types of bacteria are too intimidating.
Neither of these is a main dish, but by the end of this post I hope none of my readers will mind all that much. I discovered the Beer Onion Jam nearly by accident while preparing a fancy-ish meal to bring on a foodie camping trip. When I made it up I didn't realize how similar it was to a French dish, confit l'oignon, until I stumbled across a post on one of google+'s food-loving communities, in fact my main community, foodies+. The confit stores very well if poured into a sterilized jar and I have to admit I'm still tinkering with a version of my onion jam recipe that will do better in the long term. As for the potatoes...my word, the fluffy baked-in-butter potatoes have my vote for side dish of the year! Lemon zest and Thyme add a lovely combo of citrus fragrance and smoky herbaceous-ness, and the absolute best potato to use in this dish hands down is yukon gold. A really good dark beer is required for the Onion Jam; the few times I've tried to use a cheap beer the liquid in the jam tasted sort of dirty and very salty.
I'm sure you're wondering how a dish is made up "by accident"; well, while planning the meal I wanted to complement the flavor of some delicious organic pork sausages I planned to grill. I came across a recipe suggesting a beer-onion-garlic marinade for pork sausages. According to the recipe the sausages would be simmered for awhile in beer. The cooking liquid smelled so delicious while cooking that it made me realize reducing the liquid and bottling the result would make for a fantastic relish. As it turned out, it was a big hit! It lent an amazing flavor to our grilled sausages. We ended up with a lot more relish than we could use, so I'd recommend using the liquid to braise some sausages for you and your family the night before attending or hosting a big bbq, then reducing the simmering liquid, pureeing the results and serving it up at the next day's bbq alongside your other hot dog/sausage/hamburger condiments. It tastes amazing with a little mayo on a grilled pork sausage.

Beer Onion Relish

2 slices uncured, thick cut bacon, sliced into 1/2" pieces
1 1/2 medium yellow onions, roughly chopped
18 - 24 ounces good dark beer (a stout or a porter from a brewer whose beers you enjoy)
3 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1. In a heavy bottomed saucepan over medium flame, cook bacon until crispy and fat has been rendered.
2. Add onion, garlic and black pepper, and stir to coat. Add beer to just cover all ingredients.
3. Add in bay leaf and mustard powder and reduce heat to low.
4. Simmer, uncovered over low heat until liquid reduces by at least half.
5. Once liquid has reduced, remove from heat and allow jam to cool before pureeing mixture. Serve as a condiment with grilled sausages and burgers. It is amazing on the same bun with mayo, particularly mayo with a little horseradish mixed in!

Lemon Thyme Butter New Potatoes

12 - 14 smallish new yukon gold potatoes
2 sprigs with of thyme leaves (strip leaves off and discard woody stems)
Zest of 1/3 lemon
3 Tablespoons butter, melted
Salt, to taste (I use around 1/2 teaspoon, but I much prefer potatoes that aren't lacking in it)
Freshly ground black pepper to taste (3 or so twists of the grinder into your mixing bowl ought to do it)

1. preheat oven to 42 degrees.
2. In a mixing bowl combine butter, thyme, salt, pepper & lemon zest. Add in scrubbed whole potatoes and toss to coat.
3. Spread in a single even layer on a cookie sheet and bake for 25 - 35 minutes, or until fork tender.

Enjoy alongside your grilled mains.*

*If you want to cook these on the bbq alongside your grilled mains, spread them out in a sing layer on aluminum foil, then cover with foil and crimp top & bottom foil together to seal in steam escaping from potatoes. Depending upon the size of the potatoes they'll need to cook on the grill in their foil packet for 45 - 55 minutes. If you're going to grill I'd highly recommend grilling up some olive, salt & pepper rubbed spring onions (all one piece, but white & light green parts only--discard dark green rougher top parts) until tender and somewhat more translucent and then slicing them and adding them to some mayo to make an unbelievable dipping sauce for the potatoes.

I hope you enjoy these recipes and I welcome your feedback!

Post Script: Sorry for the low quality photo; those potatoes were make, then gobble!