My favorite chilli is aji amarillo, long and thin peppers, about 3-5 inches in length. Don’t be fooled by the name – amarillo means yellow in Spanish – because ripe aji amarillo are bright orange and unripe ones are yellow. The seeds inside will make a dish very spicy so just remove them to lower the heat level. The aroma and its fruity, somewhat sweet flavor add to the spiciness, making it unique from other hot peppers.
Aji Amarillo is consider the most important ingredient in Peruvian cooking by the famous Peruvian chef Gaston Acurio.
Here at Sabor we use aji amarillo in dishes such Papa a la Huancaina, potatoes with a yellow creamy sauce; Causa, a cold potato dish colored and flavored with yellow aji; and as a garnish on Escabeche, pickled fish. Another common use is as a side dipping sauce that can accompany any meal.
In addition to flavor, aji amarillo has health benefits as well due to its high levels of capsaicin, a natural ingredient in hot peppers located in the pepper’s ribs, which is good for pain relief, as a digestion aid, and in fighting inflammation.
In the UK the supply of this Aji is very irregular, so when we get it, we buy a good quantity and make a paste that we can use later in various recipesj, and we would advise anyone to do the same.
Hi guys, hope you don't mind me posting a comment here, but I found your post and thought it might be useful to get in touch. I've just started a website called vivaperu.co.uk for Peruvian food in the UK including (of course) aji amarillo paste. We'd love any feedback on the site especially as we look to add more products... If there are more things you're struggling to get, just let me know :)
ReplyDeleteAji Amarillo is also my favourite chilli. Because i stay in the USA, so I won't be able to get aji Amarillo chilli easily. For this, I purchase aji Amarillo chilli paste from realperustore.co.uk directly. They prepare pure Amarillo paste without any kind of mixtures of colour and chemicals into it. The product is totally 100% organic.
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