Korean cuisine

Mango & Aji Amarillo hot sauce

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A perfect match

In a previous post, I mentioned that I would be experimenting to make a hot sauce with mangoes and Aji Amarillo paste. To me, they promise to be a perfect match in a hot sauce . On the one hand, their colours are similar – a bright orange yellow – and the other, the flavours are bound to complement each other.  Aji Amarillo has a fruity taste. I can imagine it will combine exceptionally well with the tropical taste of mango. It is certainly worth a bash

Making hot sauces is great fun, but it requires a lot of trial and error to get it right. Sometimes you can get it spot on, but other times it takes a bit of tweaking here and there before it finally becomes just right.  I was hoping this sauce would fall into the latter category. I have made sauces like this along a similar theme in the past, but never with Aji Amarillo paste.

Previously, I would have used Scotch bonnets to make this type of sauce, because it leans towards Caribbean type hot sauces. Indeed, the sauce I am about to make can be successfully made with fresh Scotch bonnets. To substitute, simply blitz two to three Scotch Bonnets with the other ingredients. From there, if you follow the other steps I took to make the sauce below, you will have a delicious Caribbean sauce

That being said, now is the time to try something new. A totally new hot sauce needs to be be created . So, let’s roll up the sleeves, don the apron, and get into the kitchen.

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Caribbean cooking

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Fusion food

Caribbean cooking is fusion food of the highest order. It has influences, among others, from Africa, South America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. In addition to Chillies, which are massively popular, other common ingredients are rice, plantains, beans, cassava, cilantro, bell peppers, chickpeas, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and coconuts.  These are expertly combined with garlic, onion, herbs , spices and various meats like beef, poultry, pork or seafood like fish or prawns

One spice, besides Chillies, that stands out is pimento or allspice. It got the name allspice in the 17th century (when it was first imported to Europe), by virtue of the fact that it tastes like a combination of clove, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Allspice is used together with nutmeg, black pepper, thyme, cayenne pepper, paprika, sugar, salt, garlic, and ginger in dishes like Jerk Chicken and pork. . The wood from the Pimento tree is also used to smoke jerk meats.

One of the most important Chillies in Caribbean cooking is the Scotch bonnet.  It is so important that the Ministry of Agriculture in Jamaica has even created a classification system for them. The MOA Scotch Bonnets, as they are called, have three grades.  The best grade should have a cup and saucer shape with three to four well shaped lobes, be not less than 4,5 cm in diameter, and have a uniform colour typical of the variety. The second and third grades are far less stringent in their requirements, with the lowest grade not even requiring the lobes to be distinct. It doesn’t necessarily even have to have the distinctive cup and saucer shape of the classical Scotch bonnet.

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Making sauces with Aji Amarillo

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Peru’s favourite Chilli

Aji Amarillo is a great tasting Chilli that is massively popular in Peru, where it is used to make many Peruvian dishes like Ceviche (marinated fresh seafood), a Papa a la Huancaina (a potato dish with a spicy sauce) and Causa Rellena (a spicy layered potato dish). In addition to these dishes, Peruvians also make hot sauce with Aji Amarillo. They also use it to make a dipping sauce that is served with roast chicken, french fries, boiled potatoes, and fried plantains.

Recently, I bought some Aji Amarillo Chilli paste.  I intend to make a few Peruvian hot sauces and the dipping sauce mentioned above. Usually, I would want to use fresh Chillies to make my sauces, but seeing as this Chilli growing season has only just started, that will be out of the question. At the moment, the Chilli paste will just have to do for now.

The Aji Amarillo paste I will use is authentic and was made in Peru. Indeed, it is even thickened with Tara gum.  This is a thickener uniquely Peruvian. It is an alternative to Guar gum and is made by grinding the endosperm of seeds from a tree native to Peru – the Tara tree.

Because the paste is already thickened, I will only need to add other ingredients like vinegar, garlic, onions, salt and spices to make the hot sauces.  I might also add a bit of Chilli powder and a sweeter sugar to balance the flavours. I aim to make the hot sauces carb friendly and sugar free by using Xylitol or Erythritol. The dipping sauce does not need to be sweetened

The dipping sauce combines sour cream, feta cheese, Aji Amarillo Chillies and citrus to make a creamy sauce that is great for serving with various dishes. It is also fantastic as a dip for a snack table, where it can be eaten with potato crisps, nachos or flat breads

Okay, so let’s make some Aji Amarillo sauces!

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How Chillies and BBQ are linked

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Where does BBQ come from?

I am currently reading a book by Michael Pollan called “Cooked”. In this book, there is a chapter that discusses how barbeques arrived in the American South. He states they came to this region with the slaves who had passed through the Caribbean en route to the South.  The slaves had seen the indigenous Indians cooking whole animals “split and splayed out on top of green branches stretched over fire pits”.  The Indians called this type of cooking Barbacoa. The slaves brought the idea to the South and soon  perfected the art of making them.

The term barbacoa gradually became what we know today as a barbecue or BBQ. This form of grilling meat has become popular around the world. There are few countries (if any ) where food is not prepared in this way. It has become ingrained into many cultures and is part and parcel of many cuisines

Barbeque may, however, mean different things to different people. In the Southern USA, it will mean the slow roasting of whole hogs over wood fires. In South Africa, it will mean the “braaing” of meat, satays and sausages over a charcoal fire. In the United Kingdom & parts of the USA, it might mean cooking hamburgers and sausages over a gas grill, and in Jamaica, barbecued jerked meat or poultry.  The list is by no means comprehensive and can go on forever in terms of different variations

This is common knowledge. However, one thing that may not be so well known is just how closely Chillies and BBQ are linked. Sure, we have all seen  BBQ rubs, marinades, and sauces etc made Chillies, but do we know how much Chillies and barbeques are historically connected? Let’s explore the links.

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Cooking with Scotch Bonnets

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Scotch Bonnets are a favourite

For me, this is always a fun time of the year. After having grown Chilies for the last eight months, now is the time to begin cooking with them. This post will be the first in a series I intend to write about the Chillies I harvest for this season. I want to delve into how these Chillies can be used in cooking. In the first of these posts, I explore cooking with Scotch bonnets.

Earlier this week, I harvested some yellow Scotch bonnets from a plant I overwintered from last year. All in all, I picked forty pods from this plant alone. The plant still has about ten pods on it, so by the time these ripen the plant will have delivered about fifty Chillies. That’s not bad for a single plant.

I am really happy with this result, as Scotch bonnets are one of my favourites. It is such a versatile Chilli with loads of flavour and there is so much you can do with them.

They are quite hot Chillies with a Scoville rating of between 100000 and 350 000 SHU, but by not using too many in any one dish, this heat is quite tolerable. I have previously made seriously good  hot sauce with Scotch Bonnets. I have also dried them to make Chilli flakes, used them in curries , and made jerk chicken.  There are however many more uses for Scotch bonnets in cooking.  To help me decide how I will use these Chillies, I will explore where Scotch Bonnets are used elsewhere.

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