MLK Day, Snow and Warm meals

First off, today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  And since I work in higher education I tend to see MLK day as a paid holiday, but he really should be remembered as someone who changed the world for the better.  My favorite quote by Dr.  King is,

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."

Words to live by, I think.  So thank you Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for all that you have done!

In other news, it is snowing in Olympia, WA.  It is snowing in pretty much all of western Washington.  It snows about twice a year here and people freak out.  They close schools, close roads, have breaking news reports about the weather.  And it is usually only about 2-4 inches of snow.  It's kind of insane, but I love the look of the snow.  It makes everything look so pretty and clean.  But I don't have any hills nearby to sled on, and there really isn't enough snow to build a snowman.  So I thought I would tell you about a warming, delicious, tasty, and easy meal that I tried while visitng Peru. 

I love to travel and I will eat pretty much anything, but that is another post!  In March 2011 my husband and I traveled to Peru for our One year anniversary/Honeymoon.  We went to Machu Pichu, Pisac, Ollantaytambo, and Cusco.  If you get the chance to travel to Peru then do it!   Although I really haven't traveled anywhere I wouldn't recommend. 

Anyway, I fell in love with a lot of different foods in Peru.  Alpaca meat is amazing, but it seems to be hard to find in the United States.  One of flavors that we feel in love with was Aji Amarillo chile sauce.  

Here is the Aji sauce paired with Alpaca steak and elderberries that we enjoyed in Pisac, Peru. 

Soo unbelievably fantastic!!

You can also get this delicious sauce as an appetizer, known as Papa a la Huancaina.  It is the Aji Amarillo sauce with potatoes and a hard boiled egg.  It is good thing that we were hiking around ruins and walking everywhere because I ate my weight in Aji Amarillo sauce.  Daily.   

When we returned home we tried to hunt down the ingredients to this recipe.  It turns out that the Aji Amarillo pepper is hard to find in a town the size of Olympia.  There are over a 100,000 people that live in my county, but apparently none of our great local stores had ever heard of this Peruvian spice.  We ended up driving to Seattle to get the Aji Sauce.  You can buy it in a jar as a paste or powdered.  The paste is better though.  You can buy it online as well if you cannot find the spice locally or you aren't crazy enough to drive an hour to get some spices. 

We tried for a few months to make the recipe perfect, but it was just a little off.  And then a few days ago I was watching Giada (the Food Network is my favorite channel) and she was making this recipe.  And then I saw my missing ingredient.  Walnuts.  She added her Italian flavor with a couple of other ingredients, but here is my take on Papa a la Huancaina with green peppers and shredded beef.

1 shallot or 1/4 onion

2 cloves of garlic

1 piece of bread (whole wheat, white, whatever, or even unseasoned stuffing bread while work)

3/4 cup half and half or cream

1 heaping tablespoon Aji Amarillo paste

1 cup chicken broth

1/2 of a round of queso fresco or half a block of feta or another cheese with a similar texture.

1/2 cup walnuts

Finely chop garlic and shallots and saute in a pan with a little oil until they are tender.  This takes about five minutes.  And although I love olive oil on pretty much everything, it does have a distinct flavor so I would probably use vegetable oil in this recipe. 

In a food processor or blender combine all the remaining ingredients.  Blend until all ingredients are combined.  Then add the shallots and garlic and blend until fairly smooth.  Pour sauce back into the pan you used to saute and cook on medium-low heat until the sauce turns a darker yellow, which takes about 10 minutes.  And you are ready to enjoy.  We paired our sauce with some simple boiled Yukon potatoes, some hard boiled eggs, a green pepper I simply cut in half because I felt like we needed something green on our plates, and leftover pot roast. 

I know my recipe doesn't look quite as good as the dish we got in Peru, but I was pretty proud of how it turned out. 

My husband and I ate the entire recipe.  In less than an hour.  We did not have any queso fresco (because I will eat it all in one sitting so I try not to buy it unless I have a dish planned) so I put the feta cheese in expecting it to be way too salty, but it was actually really good.  And I was surprised at how easy the recipe was to make.  And the sauce is warm, rich, and thick.  Perfect for cold winter days.  You can really add this sauce to anything, veggies, chicken or pork.  I think it would even be great with tofu.

Keep Tasting,