Menu
11.2.20 – 11.5.20
Aji de Gallina
Pilar’s traditional Peruvian stew made with
yellow aji pepper, pecans, spices & cream
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Aji Toppings
Shredded roast chicken, hard boiled eggs,
sliced olives, parsley & chopped pecans
*plant-based option: shredded seitan
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Multi-hued Potatoes
Variety of diced boiled potatoes with parsley
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Solterito
Traditional Peruvian chopped salad with corn,
edamame, kale, tomatoes, red onion, parsley, crumbled cheese, avocado &
olives with a light sherry dressing
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Pio Nono
Peruvian sponge cake rolled
with creamy dulche de leche
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Plating Instructions
On a plate pile the potatoes, ladle the Aji de Gallina sauce over them, top with the shredded chicken, and garnish with the olives, eggs, and pecans; serve the solterito salad on the side; and finish dinner with a slice of the decadent Pio Nono!
Curious Story
The country of Peru is dissected by the towering Andes forming a north-to-south ridge through the center of the country with Amazonian rain forests to the east and the vastly deep and cold Pacific Ocean to the west. Peruvian agriculture is equally vast and varied: highland Quechuan villages where they farm thousands of native potato, tomato, quinoa, and pepper varieties; exotic tropical fruits harvested from the Amazon; and one of the world’s great fisheries in Lima that provides its famed ceviche!
Geography may inform Peruvian cuisine, but it is the vast intermingling of so many cultures that define it. It begins with indigenous cuisines from the Incas and other tribes but continues with the arrival of Spanish Conquistadors. They might have brought their own herbs and Spanish cooking techniques, but took back home potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, and corn–Peruvian influence made possible basic European dishes like Italian tomato sauce and Irish potatoes. With African, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, and many other influences, Peru is the original fusion cuisine.
Curious Table serves you a menu inspired by our executive chef Rob Hughes and his Peruvian wife Pilar. Aji de Gallina is a classic fusion dish of Peru–conquistadors added Peruvian yellow aji peppers to their traditional Catalan stew menjar blanc and served it on potatoes rather than rice. Remarkably, this Spanish-Peruvian dish was popularized more than a century before British sailors reached the shores of North America and remain popular to this day in Peru. Along with solterito, a chopped salad that Pilar described as “the ceviche of the highlands” and Pio Nono, this is dinner worthy of Peru’s geography and cultural fusion.
From our table to yours…
Eat well, be well!
Next Week’s Meal
We are featuring the beautiful cooking of Tara Bench – commonly known as Tara Teaspoon – in celebration of her long-awaited cookbook Live Life Deliciously! Enjoy her warm and delicious chicken pozole verde – a Mexican-inspired stew of hominy, tomatillos, lime, & roasted peppers with her signature coconut cream pie.
Plant-based option: spaghetti squash
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