Chilli-Garlic Paste

This sauce is prepared similarly to Thai Chilli sauce and Berberé and, like these sauces, is lethally hot. Take only the tiniest taste at first. This is excellent for spicing up the gentle potato and cheese dishes of Peru.

Ají, pronounced ah-hee, is the Peruvian word for chilli. It evolved from the same Indian word as chilli did, and despite the fact that it sounds much like the Romance language prefix ail, ai, or aj, which refers to