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Ají Amarillo Paste

Yellow chillies deveined and boiled in three changes of water, which is what takes the heat out and leaves the fruit behind.

Vegan.

Ingredients

Method

  1. THE WATER IS CHANGED THREE TIMES AND THAT IS WHAT TAKES THE HEAT OUT. Covered with cold water, brought to the boil, drained, and the whole thing repeated twice more in fresh water. Capsaicin leaches into the water, so each change carries some of it down the sink, while the fruit flavour and the colour stay in the pepper. Boiled once in the same water the heat has nowhere to go; left raw, the paste is fierce and one spoonful dominates whatever it is put in. Three changes leaves a paste you can use six spoonfuls of.
  2. AND THE SEEDS AND THE WHITE RIBS COME OUT FIRST, before any boiling. Split lengthways and scrape the ribs away with a teaspoon. Most of the heat is in those ribs rather than the seeds, and no amount of boiling reaches it while they are still attached.
  3. THE SKINS COME OFF AFTER BOILING AND SLIDE OFF EASILY. Left on, they will not break down in the blender and the paste is flecked and gritty rather than smooth and glossy. Rub them away under the tap.
  4. IT IS BLENDED WITH THE OIL, not with water. Oil carries the flavour, gives the paste its gloss and makes it keep; blended with water it is thin, dull and goes off in days.
  5. THE PASTE IS THE COLOUR OF THE DISHES IT GOES INTO. Papa a la huancaina, aji de gallina and ocopa are all yellow because of this, so the paste is not pushed past a bright orange-yellow: scorched or over-reduced it goes brown and takes every one of those dishes with it.
  6. Peppers washed, tops cut off, and split lengthways.
  7. The seeds and the WHITE RIBS scraped out with a teaspoon and discarded.
  8. Put in a pan, covered with cold water, brought to the boil and boiled 5 minutes. DRAINED.
  9. Covered with fresh cold water and boiled again, 5 minutes. DRAINED.
  10. A THIRD time in fresh water, 5 minutes. Drained and left to cool enough to handle.
  11. The skins rubbed off under running water and discarded.
  12. The flesh put in a blender with the oil and salt.
  13. Blended 2 minutes to a completely smooth, glossy, bright paste. A little more oil if the blender will not catch.
  14. TASTED on a fingertip: warm rather than hot. If it is still fierce, the ribs were left in.
  15. Into a jar with a film of oil on top. Keeps 3 weeks in the fridge and freezes well in an ice-cube tray, which is how most of it should be kept.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Peru · All recipes