It is raining heavily since last one week, the month of July is always like this in Mumbai, sometimes it rains so heavily that city gets paralysed.
I remember last year July2019, It was raining too, real heavy, each time I looked at sky, I showed my fist, frowning at the skies. It was a special day. It was the launch of our Wild Asparagus Table, brainchild of Salloni Malkani and Chef Ananya Banerjee, to explore the world cuisine. French cuisine, the mother of European gastronomy, was the theme. I remember the amount of hours I had spent researching the customs, culture and food of France. I even saw the whole series of Julia Child cooking. She always said that people who love to eat, are always the best people, and I believe that. I didn’t want to miss it at any cost. Luckily Uber service made it possible for me to attend that event and I thoroughly enjoyed that day.
And thus the potluck chapter began, different month, different cuisines, as we travelled virtually through different parts of the world, always looking forward to the next one, till Covid19 came to hijack our plans.
Here we are, some eighty plus active WAT members (that includes bakers, home-chefs, food bloggers, food connoisseurs,….) all stuck at home, cooking food mainly for our family members only. Thanks to our cyber space, we continue to share our knowledge through different chat shows through social media channels.
So, this month, we celebrated once again, the theme was Peruvian cuisine. In the last 10 years, Peru has been recognised as one of the world’s best culinary destination. Although Peruvian cuisine is a product of cultural fusion,ingredients and cooking methods, the adaptation of traditional dishes to modern cuisine is the result of gastronomical boom in recent years. Peruvians continue to mix everything from popular street foods to vanguard cuisine that introduces new textures and flavors, Saddest part of this potluck is that we could only share the pictures. We could not taste each other’s food, nor pose for different group pictures, nor have drinks. We ate what we cooked and shared only with our family members, but the research and interest was the same, same drive to learn something new and cook, same enthusiasm and yes, I learnt something new, because I have never been to that part of the world and looking at the different food prepared by others, I am wiser now.
The most important ingredient in all Peruvian cuisine is the potato, as Peru has the widest variety of potatoes. There are more than3000 kinds of potatoes.
I have feasted with my eyes only. Throughout the day, on Saturday, the 25th July2020, the pictures were posted on our group, as soon as they finished cooking. Everybody made Peruvian cuisine in their home and only shared their pictures. I drooled at every picture and wished we were enjoying all the food some common place (our last potluck was on a boat..uff)
I decided to make Aji de Gallina.
This rich, velvety chicken dish is creamy, nutty and spicy, There is burst of different flavors and it tasted even better the next day.
There are many ingredients that are not available right now during this lockdown, so I have tweaked the recipe a little
The steps to make this amazing chicken, follow me..challo
Step 1
Boil 500gms of chicken breast in one litre of water, add 2tbsp of chilli garlic oil and one vegetarian cube. I put one egg to boil too (why waste extra stove for one egg?)
Step2
Remove the boiled chicken, cool it, shred it and keep it aside.
Step3
Remove half of the stock and boil rice in it. add garlic if you wish (I wanted flavoured rice)
Step4
Add 2 slices of bread to the remaining stock and let it soak.(I used brown bread, I am diet conscious that way)
Step5
Add 2tbsp walnuts, 2tbsp pistachio, 1 cup grated cheese, and half cup skim milk. Make a puree and keep it aside.
The main taste in this dish is from yellow aji peppers, that I was not able to get, but I used Bertie’s pepper sauce, that is used in typical Caribbean cuisine, and has a similar taste.
Step6
In a pan, heat 1tsp of olive oil. Add 2 finely chopped onion, 8pods of garlic, 8 green chilies, 2 spoons of pepper sauce.(did you notice how spicy it will be?, that pepper sauce is dynamite)
Step7
Cook till onions are translucent, add the shredded chicken (made in step2) and cook for a minute.
Step8
Add the walnut-pistachio-bread puree (made earlier in step 5) mix and cook for 5 minutes till it is mixed well and creamy
To serve
Serve with boiled rice, boiled potatoes, boiled egg, walnuts and black olives. You have to taste it to know its unique flavors. Spicy because of hot pepper sauce, creamy because of milk and cheese and nutty because of walnuts and pistachio...Are you inspired to cook this...????
Its easy.......come on...I loved it
It was tasting even better the next day and I made croquets the next day adding just bread crumbs and deep frying...nice snack to go with drinks....
