Discovering Aji Amarillo Peppers

Reader Contribution by Fred Hempel
article image

In 2012, we were asked to grow Aji Amarillo peppers for one of our customers. They are used extensively in Peruvian cuisine, but here in the U.S. they are often in short supply, and chefs are limited to using imported Aji Amarillo pastes or dried peppers. It is now almost 3 years later and we still haven’t been able to deliver the Aji Amarillo for the customer who requested them. Paradoxically, however, Aji Amarillo has become one of our favorite peppers, although it feels like we are only scratching the surface of its potential.

Problems (and Solutions) Growing Aji Amarillo Peppers

The main reason we have yet to deliver ripe Aji Amarillo peppers to the customer who originally requested them is that, by chance, we started off growing the “wrong” cultivar of Aji Amarillo. In 2012, we got seeds from a couple of different sources, and the only seeds that germinated that year produced an abundance of 1- to 2-inch-long peppers. What the chefs expected were 5- to 7-inch peppers with much thicker flesh, and the peppers we produced were “too small.” It wasn’t clear, back then if the problem was that our peppers were not grown under the right conditions or if something else was wrong. But, it is clear now that the Aji Amarillo peppers we grew were simply a different strain (cultivar) of Aji Amarillo than the one our customers wanted.

An additional problem with our peppers, as far as our customers were concerned, was that our peppers were not the right color. Instead of being golden orange, they were mostly yellow. What we now know, is that Aji Amarillo needs a long, hot summer to ripen an abundance of fruit. Our summers in Northern California wine country are probably not quite long enough and/or not quite hot enough to produce large amounts of ripe golden-orange Aji Amarillo peppers. Typically, at the end of our growing season, most of the peppers are still more yellow than golden orange. Given these results, we had a couple of choices. First, we could call our Aji Amarillo project a bust, and stop growing them. Alternatively, we could find other uses for the very flavorful, unripe yellow peppers.

Comments (0) Join others in the discussion!
    Online Store Logo
    Need Help? Call 1-800-234-3368