🛒 Ingredients
- 500 gchicken breast or thighs
- 300 gpapa criolla (or Yukon gold), peeled & halved
- 300 gpapa pastusa (or russet potato), peeled & sliced
- 200 gpapa amarilla (or waxy potato), peeled
- 2corn cobs, cut into 4 pieces each
- 1large onion, quartered
- 4cloves garlic, smashed
- 2 tbspdried guasca herb (essential!)
- 2chicken stock cubes or 1.5L stock
- Salt & pepper to taste
- - To serve
- Heavy cream or crema de leche
- Capers and sliced avocado
👨🍳 Instructions
💡 Chef's Tips
The three potatoes matter: Each type plays a different role. Papa criolla dissolves and thickens. Papa pastusa/russet holds some shape. Papa amarilla provides a buttery texture. In a pinch, just use two varieties, but the tricolor potato blend is what makes ajiaco, ajiaco.
Guasca: Find it in Latin grocery stores or online. There's no real substitute, dried guasca is sold in envelopes and a little goes a long way.
Bogotá vs. coast: In the interior highlands version (Bogotá), it's always served with cream and capers. At the coast, variations exist without guasca.
📜 A Short History
Ajiaco is specifically tied to Bogotá and the Andean highlands, where all three potato varieties used here, papa criolla, papa pastusa, and papa amarilla, are native crops that have been grown in that exact region for centuries. Guasca, the herb that gives the soup its distinctive flavor, is a wild plant historically foraged in the Colombian highlands, which is part of why this dish doesn't really exist in quite the same form anywhere outside the Bogotá region.
🍽️ Nutrition (per serving)
Estimated from standard ingredient nutrition data for this recipe as written, serves 4. Sodium is high mainly from the stock cubes, use low-sodium stock or fresh stock if you're watching intake.