Friday, July 30, 2010

Pollo Frito: Cuban Fried Chicken


I've slowed down my blogging but not my cooking. After posting over 100 recipes I'm pretty much down to repeating myself. I rattled my brain this week thinking of what to make that wasn't redundant. Finally I settled on fried chicken. I don't often make fried chicken because, well, it's fried. But what the heck? Cuban fried chicken is not battered so that eliminates some calories, and I had family over tonight who could help me eat it. The trick to this recipe is to marinate the chicken in mojo overnight, or for at least a minimum of three hours.

1 chicken cut up into sections, (I cut up the chicken breast into smaller pieces also)
vegetable oil for frying

for the mojo
4-5 cloves garlic pressed
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 cup sour orange juice (half sweet orange juice and half lime juice)
1/2 large onion, peeled and sliced

Remove the skin from your chicken except for the legs and wings. Press the garlic with the salt and spices. Stir in orange juice. Place chicken pieces in non reactive bowl. Arrange onions over chicken and pour on marinade.

Cover with plastic wrap and chill a few hours or overnight. Drain chicken and discard marinade. Blot chicken dry. Fry the chicken pieces until golden and cooked through. (I didn't do a great job at draining the chicken or blotting it dry, so I had little burnt on pieces of garlic and onion, which was fine by me).

4 comments:

  1. This looks wonderful!! It makes me think of my mom. For that reason I'm sending you a big hug!!! Mmmmm, it's like I can smell the chicken! Yum!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You know my grandma does a chicken almost like that except it's just lime, tons of garlic, cumin, and salt then almost deep-fried till cooked through so good!!!! She also does it like American fried chicken, coat it in flour and deep=fry :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yumm...I love mojo with chicken. Yours looks wonderful! I feel the same way about my blogging. Sometimes you want to try all these other good recipes you see on other food blogs and you don't want to post the same recipe that they just posted. I always wonder if they ever repeated a recipe or just keep doing different things each day! :D

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sharline, hug for you too sweetie.

    Nathan, your grandma is a great cook. I'm still learning as I go. I appreciate your comments suggesting alternatives. Thanks.

    Lyndsey, sometimes I tell my husband that I'm just going to stop blogging. I mean I've already posted what I KNOW how to do, now I'm posting what I DON'T KNOW how to do. This blogging stuff is an adventure!

    ReplyDelete