I just meant that it’s not an unusual ingredient and it’s how aji verde is typically made. The proportions of mayo sometimes change, but mayo is pretty constant. Parmesan cheese is what you might usually find in addition to mayo, as Peruvians do tend to put cheese in a lot of sauces. It’s usually the cheap kind rather than actual parmigiano Reggiano.
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If you can lay hands on aji amarillo paste, I highly recommend it instead of any fresh peppers - it really makes the sauce. Might even drown out the inauthenticity of feta!!! 
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That’s so interesting! Thanks for the info. As I said, I’ve probz only made this once several years ago, and am not versed in Peruvian cooking.
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Pick up pepperoni pizza pie from a local purveyor, added a few things I had lying around(pickled jalapenos/onions and peppers, Parm/Regg)
Pretty decent deal, $11 + tax and tip- pick up only, 8 slices and the pie was real good.
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Oh, we used the aji amarillo paste. What we couldn’t find was the aji panca. Plus 4-5 fresh bird peppers def made our mouths sing 
My bad, I was looking at the epicurious recipe, which doesn’t call for aji amarillo. 
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Both aji amarillo and aji panca are pretty mild so your sauce was no doubt far spicier than any aji you’d find in a Peruvian restaurant. Peruvian food like most Latin American food is not particularly spicy. Mexico being an outlier in Latin America. At most you have a few countries like Peru with a handful of spicy dishes and they don’t tend to be as hot as spicy Mexican dishes. Then a bunch of countries that don’t consume spicy food at all and lots of people think black pepper is an ingredient that makes food spicy.
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I like the black mint called for; it really adds something.
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We had household favorite - roasted salmon on crispy potatoes, an adaptation of the ATK cod recipe. I augmented with a load of roasted mushrooms, shallots, garlic, and sage as well.
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I know I sound like a broken record, but that looks spectacular. Salmon, shrooms, crispy potatoes, garlic, sage… 
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Thanks! If I wasn’t so exhausted, I would have opened a Pinot Noir to go with it. Bliss!
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Two words: screw tops!
(if the exhaustion refers to not being able to uncork the bottle, that is 
)
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Sadly, I am too tired for the wine to do anything but make me more tired. I want to have it when I can spend the time to appreciate it
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I took a 19km/11.8mi walk and when I got home, I was both tired and chilly. I had eaten udon out for lunch while on my walk, so for dinner I wanted something filled with veggies and a bit healthy. So I made a “hotpot” of cut vegetables (cabbage, napa cabbage, green onions, carrots and daikon) with grilled tofu in a vegetable consommé and pork miso soup. It was simple and warming.
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Have been thinking about my weekend dinners for several days, but had no idea WWFD for tonight. Until I remembered on the drive to work this morning that I had about 1/3 of a family-sized bag of Rana’s 5 cheese tortellini in the freezer.
BINGO.
Sliced up a carrot, chopped up some onion and red bell pepper, took some peas out of the freezer, and sauteed everything.
Made a sauce of President garlic and herb cheese, heavy cream, Italian herbs, a pinch of s/p and a squish of tomato paste for a Rosa (or pink) sauce.
Added the cooked tortellini to the veg, added the sauce, heated it through, plated and topped with a sprinkle of grated Parm-Reg.
Wine, and it was dinner.
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it’s pretty much this, from serious eats:
- 3 whole jalapeño/serrano chiles, roughly chopped
- 1 tablespoon (15ml) [ají amarillo pepper paste]
- 1 cup (1 ounce) fresh cilantro leaves
- 2 medium cloves garlic
- 1/2 cup (120ml) mayonnaise
- 1/4 cup (60ml) sour cream
- 2 teaspoons (10ml) fresh juice from 1 lime
- 1 teaspoon (5ml) distilled white vinegar
- 1/4 cup (60ml) extra-virgin olive oil
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
i kinda just wing the amounts. again, i think i use much less olive oil.
although I’ve read many Peruvian recipes in Spanish that actually use cottage cheese too, so i’ve made it with that too… And which i know you LOVE. 
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I always use way more lime juice to taste. And yeah, olive oil can be cut back.
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The last dinner of our freezer-cleanout week. Chicken soup from scratch over German egg noodles. Homemade soup crackers.
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Tonight’s dinner was supposed to be Baked Ziti, but I didn’t have any Ziti, so I substituted penne. Baked Penne with green beans on the side and some red wine that was a gift from a friend. A very nice relaxing and delicious meal.
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Early dinner (& late lunch) of Beef Pad See Ew and Beef Chow Fun – had to use or lose the fresh ho fun I bought during our HO Chinatown adventure the other day.
There were more noodles than I expected in the $2 bag, so I decided to divide them and make both my favorite fat noodle dishes instead of just one.
The only applicable protein at hand was a steak that I had cooked sous vide (very rare) and frozen a while back, so that got sliced very thin and left to marinate while I prepped the rest.
The ho fun were actually sheets rather than the cut noodles I usually buy, so that was a bit more fiddly than anticipated to soften, slice, and separate them, but it all worked out in the end.
Best decision of the day was to use the non-stick pan instead of the wok – lovely char without sticking, and great flavor on both dishes.
(Broccoli on the side instead of chinese broccoli inside the pad see ew, bec turns out I forgot to buy any groceries in Chinatown amidst all the eating.)
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