Pollo ala Brassa, aka 'Peruvian Chicken'

[edhead35]

Annatto powder is ground Annatto seeds. It is used  to make a achiote paste and imparts a slightly earthy flavor but is more about color than flavor.

Looks like I am making it this weekend. I will be using the other recipe though,  the one I posted, adjusted for more salt, Mexican oregano, and brandy. Next time I will try the second method.

thanks for correcting me on annatto, Ed.  I was thinking that it must be more for color than flavor. 

and -- dang! -- you reminded me that I totally forgot to buy Mexican oregano today.  And it would have only set me back about 99 cents at the market...

I just bought a pound of Mexican oregano. Lol. Gonna share it with friends and family and still have way more than I need.



Found some sauces at the local supermarket.

[mike.stavlund]

A pound of oregano is a lot of oregano!  Wow.

[edhead35]

Yeah, way too much but it was $16
A few friends have been looking for it so I bought a big bag,  and will probably still never use it all.

[Mark Schnell]

Mike, I've enjoyed the thread and want to try this recipe and technique. Just a few questions about mechanics. The way you truss the chicken on the roti. - is that your creation, or is there a link for that? I know how to truss a bird before putting it on the grill but that style pulls the legs up tight in the center. Yours seems to have the legs tied out to the side and also tied to the spit forks. Looks interesting.

Also, when I do "normal" chicken on the roti I just use the regular style of coals on both sides on the charcoal grate. I'm assuming the elevated heat/one side setup is a part of this Peruvian style, but what does that do to your cooking time? With the old style I usually have an hour to hour and half, depending on one or two birds, size, etc.?

I like this because I'm not only intrigued by the flavor possibility, but I love to try new setups.

[edhead35]

Here is a good video that shows trussing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWLt6G85zC4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[Mark Schnell]

Yeah, that's the way I learned to do it and it works great. I thought Mike's trussing looked a little different than that though.

[pbe gummi bear]

Mike, I've enjoyed the thread and want to try this recipe and technique. Just a few questions about mechanics. The way you truss the chicken on the roti. - is that your creation, or is there a link for that? I know how to truss a bird before putting it on the grill but that style pulls the legs up tight in the center. Yours seems to have the legs tied out to the side and also tied to the spit forks. Looks interesting.

Also, when I do "normal" chicken on the roti I just use the regular style of coals on both sides on the charcoal grate. I'm assuming the elevated heat/one side setup is a part of this Peruvian style, but what does that do to your cooking time? With the old style I usually have an hour to hour and half, depending on one or two birds, size, etc.?

I like this because I'm not only intrigued by the flavor possibility, but I love to try new setups.

I haven't tested this empirically Mark, but intuition tells me that coals on one side will cook a bird slower than cooks on both sides- having one shorter cycle of randiant heat on the bird instead of two may also affect how the skin crisps.

This assumes that:

-the radiant heat from two sided coals is double that of coals on one side.
-internal kettle ambient temp is the same on both setups

I am not sure how noticable this would be.

[mike.stavlund]

Great questions, Mark! I just wish I had better answers-- I'm just making this up as I go along.  ;-)  In fact, I just went back to see the photos to remember exactly how I trussed those birds.  So I'm no expert, but I can tell you what motivates my setup and trussing.

re: trussing.  I'm trying to keep the dark meat nice and tight to protect the white meat, and also trying to keep the whole bird from flopping around on the forks too much.  So I kinda modify my classic trussing method by first running the string around the spit to kinda pull the legs down a bit, then wrapping around the ends of the drumsticks once, then passing the string by the sides of the body to tuck in both the thighs and the wings, then just tying the whole thing off to the spit at the head end. 

re:  heat.  Yep, gummi is right on about my reasoning.  I have done a lot of rotis cooks with a full basket on either side of the kettle, which brings the whole kettle up to a good roasting temp and gets the chicken done just a bit slower than a traditional non-rotis cook.  And the meat is super-juicy for sure, but the skin isn't too crisp.  Then I noticed that someone here (Brian, maybe?) said he always does rotis cooking with the heat on one side, so I thought I'd try it (I also has a friend who hand-turns a whole lamb on a rotis over an open pit every Easter, and he builds the fire on just one side).  But the bigger factor is something you can see if you take a look at the video link that gummi posted earlier in this thread: the traditional pollo a la brassa method has the birds on spits, but that whole spit assembly also *rotates* over the coals, giving each bird a close pass over some high radiant heat every minute or so.  So I was trying to approximate that, without having the fire right under the bird the whole time (which I can only imagine would expose the chicken to a lot of flare-ups). 

So.  In an effort to get some more radiant heat, I elevated the coal baskets to sit right next to the birds.  Which does help with flavor and crisp skin, but also takes a bit longer.  Or at least it seems to-- I've only tried it this way twice now.  The lid therm on my old SS says the kettle is as hot as ever, but for some reason the whole process seems to take more like 90 minutes.  Again, your mileage may vary and I might be totally wrong about this (like gummi, it seems to me that the ambient temp inside the kettle should be just as hot, since there are the same number of coals inside there, but my experience hasn't borne that out just yet). 

Give it a try in whatever way seems sensible to you, and let us know how it worked!  I'm sure we're all eager to learn from one another, and as much as I love Peruvian chicken, I can't eat it more than once a week.  ;-)

[pbe gummi bear]

Another BIG difference with the commercial sized cookers is that the drippings fall onto another bird.

[1buckie]

"I haven't tested this empirically Mark, but intuition tells me that coals on one side will cook a bird slower than cooks on both sides"

Tested empirically on meatloaf & it does work as described...........on meatloaf

[mike.stavlund]

Another BIG difference with the commercial sized cookers is that the drippings fall onto another bird.

Exactly.   In fact, at some of the places I've been, each spit travels vertically maybe two feet, then follows another parallel track down to take a pass right over the coals.  So even more juices marinating each chicken. 

[Mark Schnell]

Thanks, Mike and others. I love this place!!

[edhead35]

Just made both versions of the marinades. Used brandy in both instead of wine. It felt good to use some of the mexican oregano I just bought, although it will take me forever to use 1lb of mexican oregano LOL.
Ran out of paprika, so I have to add that later. Ill rub the birds tomorrow morning early and put them in the fridge, and cook them around 5pm tomorrow.

[pbe gummi bear]

Just made both versions of the marinades. Used brandy in both instead of wine. It felt good to use some of the mexican oregano I just bought, although it will take me forever to use 1lb of mexican oregano LOL.
Ran out of paprika, so I have to add that later. Ill rub the birds tomorrow morning early and put them in the fridge, and cook them around 5pm tomorrow.

Good luck, Ed. Take alot of pictures.

[mike.stavlund]

Ed, you must be a genius systems engineer or something:  parallel processing with side-by-side tasting is a great way to learn a ton about this dish.  Thanks for trying both, and for sharing your results!

(I learned about this from a friend of mine who was wanting to learn about cooking on a Weber.  I told him what I tell everyone:  roast a whole chicken.  He talked to me about technique for a long time, then gave it a go.  But instead of doing what I would have done and cooking one chicken once a week to learn, he (like the systems engineer that he is) bought *two* chickens.  Fired up the grill, roasted one, took it off, rested it, tasted it, then seasoned bird #2, stoked up the fire again, cooked another chicken, and made further notes.  Within one more cook he had his seasoning and method down cold.  Moved up to pork butts shortly after (following buckie's 'snake' method).  As Chasing Smoke has taught me, the key to learning about cooking stuff is *repetition*, and the closer the reps are to one another the more you learn.)