Doña Maria's Escabeche de Pollo Recipe
This month’s recipe comes from Na’atik’s incredible homestay: the Tus Ku family. The wonderful Doña Maria showed us how to make her family’s favorite: Escabeche de Pollo. Escabeche is a marinated chicken dish served with onions pickled in the juice of bitter oranges, which is common here in the Yucatan. Ingredients:
Roasted/charred whole bulb of garlic - skin on
Roasted/charred chile xcatik (of the Yucatan) - alternatively you can use a guero pepper or a yellow wax pepper
Roasted/charred chile dulce or green pepper
6 large pieces of chicken, Maria uses leg or thigh
3 large white onions sliced
6 bitter oranges - or alternatively 6 juicy limes
4 cloves of garlic
4 leaves of dried oregano
Cinnamon
Salt
Black pepper
1 red onion sliced
Water
Method:
Clean the chicken
Prepare a paste using a teaspoon of pepper, the garlic cloves, oregano, a teaspoon of cinnamon, and a pinch of salt using a pestle and mortar - Maria uses dry oregano leaves from her garden to prepare the paste, which they call recado
Mix the juice of 3 bitter oranges with the paste, add more salt if required
Marinate each piece of chicken with the juice by pouring it over and massaging it in before placing it in a large flat bottomed pot
Layer with the sliced onion and put the roasted garlic, chile xcatik and chile dulce on top
Pour water gently over the chicken so it just covers the chicken, enough so when cooked it makes a broth - you can add more water while it cooks if required
Cook on the stove for an hour and a half on a medium-low flame. Cover with a lid
While waiting for the chicken to cook, prepare the pickled red onion garnish or have a little snack if you're hungry like Doña Maria's little helper!
Slice 1 red onion and place in a bowl. Cover the onion with boiling water and cover with a plate for 10 minutes
Drain the water from the onion and add the juice of 3 bitter oranges and salt to taste and mix well
Once the chicken, is cooked dish up into shallow bowls with plenty of the broth from the pot
Serve with tortillas and enjoy!
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