Ají de gallina is a

Peruvian Peruvians (''/peruanas'') are the citizens of Peru. What is now Peru has been inhabited for several millennia by cultures such as the Caral before the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. Peruvian population decreased from an estimated 5–9 ...

chicken

stew A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been Cooking, cooked in Soup, liquid and served in the resultant gravy. Ingredients can include any combination of vegetables and may include meat, especially tougher meats suitable for ...

. The dish is considered a popular Peruvian

comfort food Comfort food is food that provides a nostalgic or sentimental value to someone and may be characterized by its high caloric nature associated with childhood or home cooking. The nostalgia may be specific to an individual or it may apply to a ...

, and the name translates to "chicken chili" or "hen's chili" in English. Ají de gallina is composed of a

sofrito (), (), (), (), () or () is a basic preparation in Mediterranean cuisine, Mediterranean, Latin American cuisine, Latin American, Spanish cuisine, Spanish, Italian cuisine, Italian and Portuguese cuisine, Portuguese cooking. It typically ...

base made by sautéing

red onion Red onions (also known as purple or blue onions in some mainland European countries) are cultivars of the onion ('' Allium cepa''), and have purplish-red skin and white flesh tinged with red. They are most commonly used in cooking, but the skin ...

garlic Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plants in the genus '' Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chives, Welsh onion, and Chinese onion. Garlic is native to central and south Asia, str ...

, and ají amarillo together, and adding shredded poached

poultry Poultry () are domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of harvesting animal products such as meat, Eggs as food, eggs or feathers. The practice of animal husbandry, raising poultry is known as poultry farming. These birds are most typ ...

and

stock Stocks (also capital stock, or sometimes interchangeably, shares) consist of all the Share (finance), shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporatio ...

. The stew is then thickened with bread soaked in

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of lactating mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfeeding, breastfed human infants) before they are able to digestion, digest solid food. ...

evaporated milk Evaporated milk, known in some countries as "unsweetened condensed milk", is a shelf-stable canned cow’s milk product for which approximately 60% of the water has been removed from fresh milk. French inventor, Nicolas Appert, the "father of ...

, cheese such as

parmesan Parmesan (, ) is an Italian cuisine, Italian Types of cheese#Hard cheese, hard, Types of cheese#Granular, granular cheese produced from Dairy cattle, cow's milk and aged at least 12 months. It is a Grana (cheese), grana-type cheese, along wit ...

, and ground nuts such as

pecans The pecan ( , , ; ''Carya illinoinensis'') is a species of hickory native to the Southern United States and northern Mexico in the region of the Mississippi River. The tree is cultivated for its seed primarily in the U.S. states of Georgia, ...

walnuts A walnut is the edible seed of any tree of the genus ''Juglans'' (family Juglandaceae), particularly the Persian or English walnut, '' Juglans regia''. They are accessory fruit because the outer covering of the fruit is technically an invo ...

. Ají amarillo ("yellow chili") is a mildly spicy pepper native to

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

, common in many

Peruvian cuisine Peruvian cuisine reflects local practices and ingredients including influences mainly from the indigenous population, including the Andean and Amazonian cuisine, and cuisines brought by immigrants from Europe (Spanish cuisine and Italian cuisine) ...

dishes. Ají de gallina is typically served with boiled potatoes and white rice, and garnished with black olives and hard-boiled egg.

History

Aji de gallina is believed to have evolved from ''manjar blanco'' or white dish, a combination of ground

almonds The almond (''Prunus amygdalus'', syn. ''Prunus dulcis'') is a species of tree from the genus ''Prunus''. Along with the peach, it is classified in the subgenus ''Amygdalus'', distinguished from the other subgenera by corrugations on the sh ...

, milk, sugar, and chicken or fish, first introduced to Spain by the

Moors The term Moor is an Endonym and exonym, exonym used in European languages to designate the Muslims, Muslim populations of North Africa (the Maghreb) and the Iberian Peninsula (particularly al-Andalus) during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a s ...

prior to the

Reconquista The ''Reconquista'' (Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese for ) or the fall of al-Andalus was a series of military and cultural campaigns that European Christian Reconquista#Northern Christian realms, kingdoms waged ag ...

. While in Europe white dish became a dessert after the Middle Ages (see

blancmange Blancmange (, from , ) is a sweet dessert popular throughout Europe commonly made with milk or cream, and sugar, thickened with rice flour, gelatin, corn starch, or Chondrus crispus, Irish moss (a source of carrageenan), and often flavoured wit ...

), in colonial Peru the stew was combined with indigenous chili peppers to form a savory main dish. Oral histories say it was created by former chefs to the French aristocracy fleeing the French Revolution and finding new employment in the

Viceroyalty of Peru The Viceroyalty of Peru (), officially known as the Kingdom of Peru (), was a Monarchy of Spain, Spanish imperial provincial administrative district, created in 1542, that originally contained modern-day Peru and most of the Spanish Empire in ...

. It was created using leftover chicken and potatoes, and other variants include using turkey or canned tuna.

References

External links

* Peruvian chicken dishes Stews Stock (food) {{Peru-cuisine-stub

History

See also

References

External links