I found this old ass package of achiote in my fridge and remembered I had acquired it from a friend who moved out of town about five years ago so I figured it was about time to give it a whirl. I guess achiote is some Myan/Yucatan shit that is just powdered annatto seeds. I know, I don't have any fucking clue what annatto is either. Anyway, I did some interweb sleuthing and discovered a few things that paired well with achiote and they came as no surprise. See that is how you use the interwebs and cookbooks. Not for douchebag recipes (except mine) but for concepts via flavor pairings. For example, if I want to know if two ingredients will pair well all I do is type both ingredients into google and see if some dumb fucker did it before me. Doesn't matter WHAT they did with it, just that they did it and it worked (hopefully). In any case, let's begin:
The instructions for how to make the achiote paste should be on the box. Mine said to mix 1/3 of the spice brick with olive oil for every two pounds of meat. After I made my paste I added one packet of Popeye's honey (I always save those little packets), a splash or two of red wine vinegar, a few cloves of minced garlic, and a little cumin. After you wash and pat dry your mini-chicken, brush it all over with this mixture and let it sit in the fridge for at least three hours.
After you bring your mini-chicken to room temperature, toss it in the oven (covered with tin foil) at 450 deg for 30 min. Drop the temp to 350 deg, uncover, and cook for another 25 min. Remove from the oven, cover again, and let sit for at least 15 min. Here a picture of my finished product. Now I want the flavor of all that shit on top but I sure as fuck don't want to eat that crap so scrape all that junk off before you pull your mini-chicken apart.
Once you plate it, as seen above, spritz the whole thing with some freshly squeezed clementine/tangerine/orange juice. Be sure not to over do it. You don't want your chicken sitting in a puddle of orange juice. If I had it, I would have also sprinkled some cilantro on top. This was by far and away the best mini-chicken I have made to date so I would totally fucking hit this one up. Eat it.
The instructions for how to make the achiote paste should be on the box. Mine said to mix 1/3 of the spice brick with olive oil for every two pounds of meat. After I made my paste I added one packet of Popeye's honey (I always save those little packets), a splash or two of red wine vinegar, a few cloves of minced garlic, and a little cumin. After you wash and pat dry your mini-chicken, brush it all over with this mixture and let it sit in the fridge for at least three hours.
After you bring your mini-chicken to room temperature, toss it in the oven (covered with tin foil) at 450 deg for 30 min. Drop the temp to 350 deg, uncover, and cook for another 25 min. Remove from the oven, cover again, and let sit for at least 15 min. Here a picture of my finished product. Now I want the flavor of all that shit on top but I sure as fuck don't want to eat that crap so scrape all that junk off before you pull your mini-chicken apart.
Once you plate it, as seen above, spritz the whole thing with some freshly squeezed clementine/tangerine/orange juice. Be sure not to over do it. You don't want your chicken sitting in a puddle of orange juice. If I had it, I would have also sprinkled some cilantro on top. This was by far and away the best mini-chicken I have made to date so I would totally fucking hit this one up. Eat it.
3 comments:
Achiote and orange juice rules on chicken! (And now, translated for the taste-imapaired...) It's sorta like El Pollo Loco, except it actually tastes delicious!
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I have never had El Pollo Loco...should I consider myself lucky?
It's only so-so. When they first started out, it was decent - more spicy, less salt - but, as they became a bigger chain, quality went out the window, as usual.
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