My week with Peruvian green sauce

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LOST IN THE SAUCE

I had never tried Peruvian food before. Everything I had ever read about it said that it is unbelievably good, so when my wife suggested we make this recipe from Kenji Lopez-Alt for Peruvian chicken sandwiches with spicy green sauce, I was on board.

I figured it would be good. I was not prepared for how good it was.

The chicken was incredible. Marinated overnight in a paste made out of garlic, salt, vinegar, cumin, and paprika, the flavor was deep, smoky, and tangy, all without being overpowering. I decided to try making homemade ciabatta rolls to go with it, mostly because I forgot to get rolls at the store and I was not about to make another grocery run. More on this later. To complete the sandwich, we topped the chicken with mashed avocado, pickled red onions, and a spicy green sauce. It was sensational, and paired wonderfully with the Mexican street corn salad, or esquites, that my wife made. It wasn’t an entirely Mexican feast for Cinco de Mayo, but we were not lacking for Latin flavor.

The star of the show, however, was unquestionably the sauce. Peruvian green sauce, or aji verde, is one of those dishes that makes you close your eyes and laugh at how good it is. It really has everything. It’s spicy, creamy, acidic, and herbaceous, all at the same time. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get my hands on any aji amarillo paste, but it didn’t feel like it was missing anything — to me at least. The heat from the jalapenos was pronounced, but didn’t overpower. The abundance of cilantro brightened up the whole dish, both in terms of flavor and color. The lime juice and vinegar gave it a nice shot of acid, which balanced perfectly with the mayonnaise and sour cream, which tempered the heat and gave the sauce its creamy body.

This sauce is everything I’ve ever wanted in a condiment. There was thankfully quite a bit left over, and both Ashley and I immediately started thinking about the other things we could put this sauce on. The next morning, we both had bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches on the leftover ciabatta rolls, spooned liberally with the sauce. At lunch, we used the sauce as dressing over our salads, which were also topped with the last remaining pieces of chicken. Later in the week, we used the sauce as a replacement for chimichurri and served it over steak and vegetable skewers. Every single way we could use this sauce, it worked perfectly and made the meal substantially better.

I feel like I should take a moment to state that even though this is the first time I’ve ever had this wonderful sauce, and Peruvian food in general, this is not some new thing I’m discovering. The internet has given us the ability to find recipes from every corner of the world, as well as buy the specialty ingredients and spices to make them. It’s very easy to come across like you discovered this hot new dish you made, but I feel it’s important to make sure to be deferential to the people and cultures that brought it into being (and in this case, not try to call it something like, a spicy cilantro aioli).

Food is an integral part of culture, and to treat certain dishes like a fad, or a cool little thing to put on a shelf to be admired, is disrespectful to the people for whom it’s a part of them. Food colonialism has been one of the internet’s main story lines for the past week, and I want to be careful to show respect for the people and culture that are responsible for sharing this wonderful green sauce. I feel this is especially important when talking about food from Latin America and the global south, since the creators are almost always marginalized by mainstream American culture. I know very little about Peru and Peruvian cuisine, but this experience has made me hungry to dig further and learn more.

Okay. Now, back to the bread.

NAILED IT

I’m sure you’ve had it happen to you, that feeling of Oh God, I screwed this up didn’t I? You may not have any evidence, but you don’t need evidence when you know deep inside that somewhere along the way, you totally botched this recipe. That’s how I felt all day waiting for the ciabatta to come out of the oven.

I don’t love ciabatta bread, to be perfectly honest. I find it’s usually a textural mismatch for what it’s served with, and you end up fighting so much with the crust that the sandwich falls apart. The recipe said to use it, though, so after realizing I forgot to get rolls at the store, I decided I might as well try to make it myself. I found this straight-forward recipe from King Arthur Flour and got to work the night before on the starter. I had never worked with a starter before, so I was a little hesitant that the yeast wasn’t going to start working. But sure enough, when I checked in the morning, the little container of flour, water, and yeast was bubbling away. I mixed it in with the rest of the ingredients and set it aside to rise, but after a couple hours it didn’t seem to be rising as much as I thought it would. The dough then took a second rise, and then had a third rise after being portioned into rolls. They were puffy...ish? I don’t know exactly what I was expecting since I had never made it before, but the whole time the dough felt a little off.

Well, it turns out I was a big dummy, because the rolls came out great. If I messed up anything about them, they had a softer crust than they should have. I opted not to spritz them with water or put a pan of water in the oven. The water turns to steam while baking, which causes the exterior of the dough to form a hard crust. By not doing that, the rolls had a softer, chewier consistency all the way through, which I liked better than normal ciabatta. It was still sturdy enough to hold everything on the sandwiches, but soft enough that each bite wasn’t a battle to keep everything from falling out. 

That’s now two weeks in a row where I’ve made my own bread, which is probably enough for a little while. Mostly for my poor waistline’s sake, I’m not planning on baking anything this week, but no promises.