Chili and Coconut Chicken Peruvian Style

This braised chicken with the flavors of  aji amarillo chilies and coconut is an outstanding dish that’s full of complex flavor. Slightly spicy and slightly sweet it tastes like you’ve been working all day but the secret is the actual active time is only 20 minutes. Made with squash and peas and cilantro this chicken is our new favorite.

The last ten days have flown by as Alex Odie San China Boy graced us with his presence. During that time we flew to Phoenix for a few days, celebrated Valentine’s Day together, ate Korean food where he also showed us the proper way to drink Soju, complete with elbow banging, and did a short food tour of Denver in the hopes of coercing him back. Of course we did way more than that but I’m to exhausted to write about it! He is now flying back to Shanghai and then to Seoul where he seems to be spending as much time as in China.

During our food tour we stopped at The Denver Central Market and devoured chocolate Kouign Amann and cinnamon rolls then on to Berkeley and il Porcellino Salumi for some in house cured meat-try the shaved bacon sandwich, then on to Candela Latin Kitchen and lastly to Union Station where we drank great gin and tonics from Ultreia. Alex had the Death Star, I had the Broken Spanish and Manservant the Rudy Ruby. Oh my! Can’t wait to go back to all of them! At Candela I finally tried mofongo and their black sea bass ceviche with aji amarillo reminded me I had just used these in this chicken dish that I just had made. Alex asked what aji amarillo was and I didn’t have a good answer…but I do now.

Aji Amarillo are yellow, somewhat spicy chilies with a fruity citrusy flavor from Peru. Their heat is similar to a serrano but a serrano lacks the citrusy taste. A habanero gives the citrusy taste but bumps the heat up considerably. Your best bet for a true flavor is to find aji amarillo paste. This wasn’t easy to do but Kroger has both aji amarillo hot sauce and a paste that comes in a tube. They have added flavors in with the chilies but in the case of this chicken they tasted fine. I am now on the search for the “just chile” version but I have no doubt that whatever you choose, you will fall in love with this chicken!

This chicken is browned in coconut oil and flavored with lots of garlic, coconut milk and chilies. Then it’s as simple as adding some thick slices of squash, gorgeous green peas and cilantro, and letting this bake until the chicken is cooked through and the squash is tender-about 45 minutes. It can then be served over rice or potatoes or in my case…egg noodles. Not traditional but definitely good. Next time around I may even serve this over mofongo which is a dish consisting of fried smashed plantains mixed with cracklings. I knew you’d want to know!

Enjoy this chicken from Peru. It’s perfect on a chilly night and it might even work with Sujo. But then again I’m guessing it doesn’t really matter what you have with that!

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