This is a festive Bolivian chicken dish. You may have trouble sourcing aji peppers, I use jalapenos fresh from my garden instead. Depending on how hot you want the dish, remove none, some or all the seeds.

15 min preparation, 60 min cooking

Ingredients

8 chicken thighs cut in half

3 onions chopped

3 tablespoons oil

3-4 hot yellow chilli (aji peppers) (substitute with fresh jalapenos)

4 garlic cloves

1 tablespoon black pepper

2 tablespoons ground cumin

1 1/2 cup frozen sweet peas

3 sticks of celery chopped

1 red capsicum sliced (non-traditional but puts some colour to the dish)

2 sprigs of fresh oregano

1 tablespoon sugar

2 cups chicken stock (3 tbsp stock powder, 2 cups water)

4 – 5 large potatoes boiled

Salsa Cruda

1 red onion

2 ripe tomatoes

1  lime juiced

Salt and pepper

1 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp chopped  coriander

Instructions

Pre heat oven 180°C

Heat oil in a pot and cook the onions until they become translucent, add the chilli, pepper and cumin and chopped garlic. Stir.

Place chicken pieces in the pot and add 2 cups of chicken stock. Bring to a boil, add the peas and celery. Cook until tender on the stove top or put into the oven with a lid on for approx 1 hour.

Just before serving, add the sugar, capsicum and oregano.

Salsa Cruda

While chicken is cooking, finely slice the red onion and pour the lime juice over it, mix. Chop the tomatoes and set aside.

Just before serving, squeeze out the lime juice from the onion, place in a bowl, toss with tomatoes, salt, pepper and olive oil. Sprinkle with coriander.

Serving

For the family table put the potato, salsa and chicken in 3 serving dishes.

Storage

De-bone the remaining chicken, let cool, seal into serve size zip-lock bags and put into the freezer.