While, like all salsas, there are as many variations as there are cooks, a basic ají criollo is made from the ají amarillo (yellow ají*), along with cilantro, garlic, onion and lime.

Each region and city has its own unique recipe. For example, ají de tomate de árbol—tree tomato or tamarillo ají—uses tamarillo as well as ají amarillo. (A recipe is below.)

Andrés Dávila, executive chef of Casa Gangotena, TripAdvisor Travelers’ Choice Top Ten Hotel, offers tourists a journey through the different types of ají, with a selection of six sauces carefully paired with a dish that heightens the flavors of the local cuisine. He’s also sent us a standard recipe so you can make your own.

Great for sauces and to kick up any meal with a great flavor and medium heat. Chewing on the chiles adds more heat.

Ají amarillo, in shades of yellow and orange. Photo courtesy PeruDelights.com.

 
PICK UP A JAR OF AJÍ AMARILLO (YELLOW AJÍ) PASTE

You can probably find a jar of ají paste in the Latin foods section of your supermarket. Goya makes it, of course, and you can find specialty brands such as Costa Peruana and Inca’s Food online.

Aji paste is simply a purée of fresh ajis. “American fusion” uses include:

 
*While ají is Spanish for chile pepper and amarillo means yellow, the color changes to orange as the chiles mature. You can see the deepening colors in the photo above.

RECIPE: HOMEMADE AJÍ SAUCE

This classic ají sauce combines tree tomato (tamarillo), ají amarillo and chochos (lupines, or lupin beans). Lupins are a large yellow Italian bean. You can substitute lima beans or fava beans for the lupins.

Ingredients

1. PEEL the tomatillos and boil them for 5 minutes.

2. BLEND the tomatillos with ají chiles. For a milder sauce, seed and devein the chiles. You can always save a few seeds and add them in if it’s too mild.

3. TRANSFER the mix to a small sauce pan, add the water (you can add more if you want a more liquid sauce) and cook on medium heat for 5-8 minutes. You can also skip the cooking part; the sauce will be fresher in taste, but will need to be consumed more quickly.

4. ADD the onion, lime juice, cilantro, optional chochos and salt to taste. Serve warm or cold.

VARIATION: Replace the water with oil (avocado, light olive oil or a mild flavored oil) for a creamier Cuencano-style ají, and do not cook it after blending.

Recipe courtesy Laylita.com.
  

The Partnership for Food Safety Education helps consumers get the facts, deflating common myths about cross-contamination and the growth of harmful pathogens that cause food poisoning. Here are their myth busters for 2014:

Myth 1: It’s O.K. to wash bagged greens if I want to. It’s even better for them.

Fact: While intuition says that giving ready to eat, washed or triple washed salad couldn’t possibly hurt, the truth is otherwise. An extra rinse will not enhance safety, but could potentially lead to cross-contamination from pathogens that could be on your hands or on kitchen surfaces. Ready-to-eat greens are just that: ready!
 
Myth 2: Cross-contamination doesn’t happen in the refrigerator. It’s too cold in there for germs to survive!

Fact: Some bacteria can survive cold environments like the fridge. In fact, Listeria monocytogenes grows at temperatures as low as 35.6°F. A recent study from NSF International reveals that the refrigerator produce compartment is one of the germiest place in the kitchen, containing salmonella and listeria bacteria.

Don’t rinse raw chicken before cooking it. Salmonella can contaminate other items in the sink. Photo courtesy Chicken.ie.

Fact: Using a clean cloth or paper towel to blot dry fruits and vegetables after rinsing is more important than you might realize. Research has found that taking a minute to dry the produce reduces the level harmful bacteria that can remain on the surface.

Myth 4: I don’t need to rinse this melon for safety, since the part I eat is on the inside.
Fact: There are many pathogens on the rind that can contaminate the edible portion. A knife or peeler passing through the rind can carry them from the outside to the inside. The rind also touches the flesh when sliced pieces of melon are stacked on a platter. Play it safe and rinse the melon under running water while rubbing it with your hands or scrubbing it with a clean brush and then dry it before slicing.

FOOD SAFETY TRIVIA

 
For more food safety information, visit FoodSafety.gov.

If you like oatmeal raisin cookies, try them for a nice change of pace: Here, sweet dates and salty nuts combine with chocolate and oatmeal for a happy holiday treat.

Food trivia: Before sugar arrived in Europe* from the Asia, dates were widely used as a sweetener in baked goods.

RECIPE: DATE NUT COOKIES

Ingredients For 5 Dozen Cookies

Dates: the world’s first sweetener. Photo courtesy Superior Nut Company.

Tasty cookies with whole-grain oats. Photo
and recipe courtesy Wisconsin Milk Marketing
Board.

1. PREHEAT the oven to 375°F. Beat together the butter, brown sugar and 1/2 cup sugar in large bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg and almond extract; mix to combine.

2. COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in separate bowl. Add to butter mixture, mixing well. Stir in oats until combined. Add dates, pistachios and chocolate; mix well.

3. SHAPE the dough into 1-inch balls; roll balls in a shallow bowl containing 1 cup sugar.

4. PLACE on parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake 8 to 10 minutes. Cool cookies on pan for one minute or until set; transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Store the cookies in airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week.

You can make veggie fries, which substitute all or some of the potato for a more nutritious vegetable, from scratch at home.

Or, you can buy Veggie Fries, a new line that has debuted offering:

 
The all natural line mixes better-for-you vegetables and legumes in with potato, to deliver more fiber and vitamins. The fries are low in sodium and gluten-free.

The company tried more than 300 recipes to create the perfect veggie fries: extra crispy on the outside, fluffy and tender on the inside. We hope you love them as much as we do.
Learn more at EatVeggieFries.com.

One of the new fries in town: Broccoli Veggie Fries. Photo courtesy Healthy Life Brands.

Serve them with your favorite condiments, or try a new one, like ponzu sauce—an Asian alternative to the malt vinegar preferred by the Brits instead of ketchup. Or take a look at these more unusual, sophisticated condiments from Chef Johnny Gnall.

If ketchup is your condiment, take a look at the best ketchup brands. For example, blend your own chili paste and honey or hot sauce, a dip of balsamic vinegar and soy sauce, or flavored mayonnaise.

And consider creating a signature fries recipe with different toppings.

A delicious vegetable “paella” of quinoa.
Photo © Hannah Kaminsky.

Vegetarians can make vegetable paella with tofu. And in this recipe, from Plant Power: Transform Your Kitchen, Plate, and Life with More Than 150 Fresh and Flavorful Vegan Recipes, you can replace the white rice as well with far more nutritious and quick-cooking quinoa.

“Every last recipe packed into this carefully crafted text are all worth making, not a single bit of fluff or page-filler to be found,” says NIBBLE contributor Hannah Kaminsky.

“One recipe that stands out is the deceptively simple Quick Quinoa Paella, an excellent example of author Nava Atlas’s skill for presenting a sound foundation that can be adapted, reinterpreted, and recreated a hundred different ways with equal success.”

You can add a conventional proteins—chicken, duck, fish, seafood. We happened to have leftover roast chicken, and added some fresh scallops and shrimp.

But quinoa is the most protein-rich grain, a complete protein with more protein per serving than milk (and perhaps the most nutritious food on earth).

Prep time is 30 minutes.

RECIPE: QUINOA PAELLA

Ingredients For 6 Servings

1. HEAT the oil, broth, or water in a large, deep skillet or stir-fry pan. Add the garlic, bell peppers, and mushrooms, if desired, and sauté over medium-low heat until softened, about 2 to 3 minutes.

2. ADD the broth, turmeric, and quinoa. Bring to a simmer and cook, covered, for 15 minutes.

3. STIR in the thyme, artichoke hearts, peas, tomatoes, scallions, and half the parsley. Check if the quinoa is completely done; if not, add 1/2 cup water. Cook, stirring frequently, just until everything is well heated through, about 5 minutes.

4. SEASON with salt and pepper, then transfer the mixture to a large shallow serving container, or serve straight from the pan. Sprinkle the remaining parsley over the top and serve at once.

As another departure from tradition, Hannah says that you can use turmeric rather than the customary saffron of paella. Saffron is harder to obtain and very expensive; but if you have it, by all means, use it. Dissolve the saffron threads in a small amount of hot water before adding to the recipe.
 

GET THE BOOK

“Plant Power: Transform Your Kitchen, Plate, and Life with More Than 150 Fresh and Flavorful Vegan Recipes,” by bestselling vegan author Nava Atlas, was published last week.

Pick up a copy and add more plant power to your diet.