Pollo Chuco

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of the finished product, so this is a stock photo of fried chicken that I plan to replace when I make this again. Photo by Gabe Pierce on Unsplash

Pollo chuco was requested and loved by our most recent kiddos. I used this recipe and this recipe to create the recipe below.

Chicken Marinade Ingredients

• 4.5 lbs of chicken (I used drumsticks, but you could use wings or whole chicken legs. All the recipes that I read said that you should use bone-in chicken)

• 1 chicken bouillon cube

• 1 cup of boiling water (to disolve the bouillon cube)

• 4 TB cumin

• 2 TB garlic

• 1/4 cup yellow mustard

Chicken Marinade Instructions

1. Disolve the bouillon cube in the water. Use 1/2 cup of chicken broth made from the bouillon for the marinade. The other 1/2 of a cup will be used for the tomato sauce.

2. Mix the bouilon mixture with cumin, garlic, and yellow mustard.

3. Pour marinade over chicken making sure it thoroughly covers the chicken and place in fridge for a minimum of 2 hours.

Pickled Onion Ingredients

• Half a large red onion

• 3/4 of a cup of apple cider vinegar

• 1/4 of a cup of water

• 1 tsp salt

Pickled Onion Instructions

1. Boil apple cider vinegar, water, and salt.

2. Chop onion into thin strips.

3. Put onions and liquid in an airtight container. After it has cooled, put in the fridge. I did this as soon as I was done marinating the chicken to give it plenty of time to “pickle.” It could also be done the day prior.

Chismol Ingredients

• 1 Green bell pepper

• The other half of the red onion

• 3 roma tomatoes

• 2 TB of chopped cilantro

• 1/4 cup of lime juice

• Salt and pepper to taste

Chismol Instructions

1. Chop and mix all ingredients together.

2. Pull out 1/4 of a cup for the tomato sauce.

3. Place the rest in fridge.

Tomato Sauce Ingredients

• 1/4 of a cup of Chismol

• 1/2 of a cup of tomato sauce

• 1/2 of a cup of chicken broth (made during the marinade)

Tomato Sauce Instructions

1. Put ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a boil.

2. Let simmer for 5 minutes.

Pink Sauce Ingredients

• 1/2 of a cup of mayonaise

• 1 TB of yellow mustard

• 1 1/2 TB of ketchup

• Optional: water or milk to thin the sauce; hot sauce for an extra kick

Pink Sauce Instructions

1. Mix all ingedients.

2. Put in fridge until it’s time to eat.

Cabbage Salad Ingredients

• 1/4 a head of medium to large cabbage or 1/2 a head of a small cabbage

• 2 TB apple cider vinegar

• Salt and pepper to taste

Cabbage Salad Instructions

1. Shred the cabbage. I used the shred feature on our food processor.

2. Mix the cabbage, vinegar, salt and pepper and place in fridge until it’s time to eat.

Fried Chicken Ingredients

• Marinated chicken

• 1 1/2 cups of flour

• 48 fluid oz of oil

Fried Chicken Instructions

1. Pour oil in a large pot and heat.

2. Roll chicken in the flour.

3. Once the oil is sizzling, put the chicken in the oil and heat until the chicken has an internal temperature of 165 degress.

4. Put a paper towel on a plate and place cooked chicken on it.

Fried Plantains Ingredients

• 4 green plantains¹

Fried Plantain Instructions

1. Do this step while the chicken is frying.

2. Slice the green plantain. I used the slice setting on our food processor. (The kids thought this part was a lot of fun).

3. After the chicken is done, put the plantain chips in the oil to fry.

4. Fry until the chips are crispy. This took about 10-15 minutes.

5. Put a paper towel on a plate and place fried plantains on it.

Tips

1. There are many steps to this recipe. You should marinade the chicken at least two hours ahead of time. The 1)chicken marinade, 2)the pickled onions, 3)chismol, 4)tomato sauce, 5)pink sauce, and 6)cabbage salad can all be made 24 hours prior. Those six steps took about 1.5 hours to complete.

2. You will notice that this recipe is really large. It makes 8-10 servings. I made this two nights in a row. I fried half the chicken and half the plantains on the first night and the other half on the second night. The salad and sauces were enough for both nights. After the second night, the only leftovers we had were some cabbage salad and onions.

3. I used an entire bottle of oil. I saved the empty bottle, and put the used oil in it once it cooled. Then I threw the whole bottle away. If you are making this two nights in a row, you will want one bottle of oil for each night.

4. To simplify this recipe, you could buy fried chicken and plantain chips.

5. From what I read online, you are supposed to layer all the ingredients on a plate, but that’s not how our kiddos ate it. They put the pink sauce on top of the chicken. Then they mixed the cabbage salad, pickled onions, chismol, and tomato sauce. They ate this salad mixture wih the plantain chips.

   

   Marinating chicken. Photo my own.

   

   Pickled onions. This is right after I made them. They turned much more pink after they had sat for a few hours. Photo my own.

   

   Cabbage salad. Photo my own.

   

   Chismol. Photo my own.

   

   Tomato sauce. It was very watery. I have adjusted the recipe to account for that. Photo my own.

   

   Plantain chips. We enjoyed the leftovers later that evening. Photo my own.

1. There was some debate online about whether to use green bananas or green plantains. When we went to the store, I asked our kiddos, which one we should use, and they said to buy plantains.