🇵🇪 Peru · Lima
Aguadito de polloPeruvian chicken and rice soup
A green Peruvian soup of chicken and rice with potato, peas, corn and squash, coloured and flavoured with a cooked blend of cilantro (culantro), ají amarillo, onion and garlic, with a watery but slightly thick body.
Origin and history
Aguadito de pollo is a traditional Peruvian soup that, according to a Peruvian culinary school, has its origin in the Lima of old, and is eaten above all in the early hours after Lima's parties; it can be a starter or a main course. La República describes a chicken-and-rice soup coloured by cilantro and notes that it is considered a remedy for flu or a hangover, which is a belief rather than a fact.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 4 servings
- Total time
- 1 h 30 min
- Hands-on
- 40 min
Ingredients
- 4 pieces chicken (presas), bone-in thighs or legs; with the giblets (menudencia) if you have them
- 1.5 liters6 1/4 cups chicken broth, La República's recipe uses only 1/2 liter; this follows the Peruvian cooking school's 6 1/2 cups for 1 cup of rice, for a soupier result
- 1 white potato, peeled, in cubes
- 1/2 cup squash (zapallo), in cubes
- 1/2 cup carrot, in cubes
- 1/4 cup shelled peas (arvejas)
- 1/4 cup corn kernels (choclo)
- 1/4 cup red bell pepper, in small squares
- 1 cup (about 200 g)1 cup long-grain rice, washed
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 tsp crushed garlic
- 1 tbsp ají amarillo paste, ground yellow Peruvian chile
- 1 handful red bell pepper, in small squares, for the aderezo
- 1 cup chopped culantro or cilantro, packed; blended
- 1 pinch each black pepper and ground cumin
- 1/2 cup dark beer (cerveza negra), optional, as in another Peruvian recipe
- oil and salt
Method
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1. Heat oil in a large pot and brown the chicken pieces, then add the giblets.
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2. Pour in the broth (and the beer if using) and add the potato, squash, carrot and a pinch of salt. Cook for 15-20 minutes.
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3. Add the peas, corn, bell pepper and the washed rice and check the salt. Cook for 10-15 minutes more.
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4. Meanwhile make the green aderezo: blend the cilantro with a little broth, then fry the onion and garlic in oil in a pan, add the ají amarillo, the handful of bell pepper and the blended cilantro, season with pepper, cumin and salt, and cook for 10-15 minutes.
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5. Stir the aderezo into the pot and cook for 10 more minutes, until the rice is soft and the soup is brothy but a little thick.
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6. Serve at once in deep bowls.
Notes
- Aguadito should be soupy, like a thick soup, and keeps thickening as the rice sits; add broth or water when it does, and serve immediately.
- The green colour and flavour come from the cooked blend of culantro (Peruvian cilantro) with ají amarillo, onion and garlic.
- Two Peruvian recipes differ: one stirs the green blend into the pot at the end, as here; another fries it with onion and ají first and then adds broth, dark beer, peas and pepper, and cooks the rice and browned chicken for the last 15 minutes, with whole yellow potatoes added 10 minutes in.
- Broth: that second recipe makes it from chicken head, feet and back simmered with leek and celery for 1 1/4 hours; boxed broth works.
- Not every recipe uses squash, corn or carrot.
- Make ahead: do not; the rice swells. Reheat leftovers with extra broth.
Adapted from La República (Peru), Aguadito de pollo: la receta más sencilla y económica and Cursos de Cocina Peruana, Aguadito de pollo peruano.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.