This was sooooo good that I just had to post it here. You won’t regret the trouble it takes to go to the Filipino stores to buy some atsuete powder (aka annatto seed powder or achiote powder). Or you can order some from mountainroseherbs.com or a similar online source. You can skip any ingredients you can’t find, like the chiles, or substitute another kind and it will still be delish! You can even swap the meat (e.g., use pork butt or some such) and it will be great.
Achiote Chicken #1 by Dragonbones
Prep: 20 min. plus overnight marinating; cook: 1.5-2 hours
Ingredients: Marinade
• Achiote paste (55g, or half a Mexican tablet of paste); see instructions online for how to make from annatto seeds if needed, but you could probably substitute about 2-3 of the 10g bags of annatto seed powder (atsuete) from the Filipino stores at #39 and #49 Zhongshan N. Rd. Sec 3.
• 3 pasilla chiles, dried; slice open, remove seeds and stem. Soak in 2 c. very hot water for 30 min. Remove and chop; reserve water. Ok to swap chile variety if needed. Pasillas are mild, but you can use hot ones if you like.
• 1 c. orange juice
• 2 Tbsp. balsamic fig vinegar or other vinegar or lime juice
• 1 tsp. brown sugar
• 1 heaping Tbsp. cumin powder
• 6 – 10 cloves garlic
• 2 Tbsp garlic powder or garlic spice mix
• 1 heaping tsp chile paste; more if you like spicy.
• 1.5 Tbsp oregano
• 4 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 heaping tsp. corn starch if thicker final sauce is desired.
• black pepper
• 2 Tbsp onion powder
Blend the above in a blender. Add:
• 1 large onion, chopped. Add liquid from pasilla chile soak if desired.
Pour into large Tupperware-type container or freezer gallon ziplock bags. Add:
• Approx. 2-2.5 kg of chopped or whole chicken legs or de-boned legs, chopped (Costco bulk pack is economical); remove skin and excess fat (will replace with healthier olive oil); score deeply with knife to allow marinade to enter.
Rub marinade into cuts in chicken. Seal and refrigerate overnight.
Next day: Place chicken AND marinade in large casserole or stock pot; add:
• bell peppers, chopped (optional)
• 1 can Italian tomatoes stewed in basil, from Costco; drained & chopped (optional)
Bake in hot oven for 1.5-2 hours (regularly ladling sauce over chicken, and turning chicken pieces halfway through), or cook in large stovetop pot, or wrap in foil (use banana leaves if you can get them). Near end of cooking, add:
• fresh or dried basil
• salt to taste.
Taste sauce, and adjust spices liberally to taste. If too thin (oven version), pour off some sauce and reduce in a sauce pan; optionally add 1 tsp or more of cornstarch dissolved in cold water and reduce, thickening. Return to oven pan for final baking. Serve with freshly cooked greens, and either white rice, Mexican rice or freshly warmed tortillas. The leftover can be shredded when cold, and saved for making enchiladas, tostadas, tacos and so on.
Man, that was good! :lick: You can pour off any extra sauce and save it, for other uses, if you want.
I’m not a wasabi fan, but I’m always interested if anyone finds any Latin American varieties of chiles in Taiwan (other than habanero and jalapeño) – like pasilla, ancho, chipotle, and so on.
Oh, now that I have annatto powder, there’s an endless list of recipes online to try. :lick: :lick: :lick: :lick:
I only bought enough for my own gluttonous self, but you can get it at the Filipino markets or by mail order, for about the same price per gram either way; I started a thread on that over here: viewtopic.php?f=98&t=75483 so you can see the details there.
This sounds like such a treat that I’ve decided to make it. I’m now at the halfway mark; the chicken is safely marinating in the fridge (didn’t have onion powder, but there’s so much going on in there already that I’m not too concerned about the omission).
Here’s a question about this recipe and a question about marinades in general: when the cookin’ time comes, do you discard the marinade, or do you include it when you’re cooking/baking?
Good question; the chicken and marinade both go into the pan. I’ve edited the recipe for clarity. Do be sure to taste the marinade halfway through and adjust liberally. Sometimes I add a bit of extra acid for tenderizing, so later that has to be balanced with brown sugar, for instance. It’s a very flexible, forgiving recipe, though. Oh, and if you’re not feeling stingy with the achiote paste you can double that. I’d have written more in, but it’s hard to get here so I economize with it.
We bought the achiote paste at a Latin American shop in Kitchener, Ontario (Canada). The place had atmosphere: two guys, one with a guitar, were warbling mariachi tunes next to the lunch counter. I asked the attractive young woman at the cash register if they were from Mexico and she said, no, they were from El Salvador. I then asked if they had mariachi music in El Salvador, and she laughed and said, of course, mariachi is everywhere!
Spices Galore will ship achiote paste to Taiwan; you can get it at a reasonable price including shipping if you specifically ask for the USPS Priority Mail International Small Flat Rate Box (no tracking): $12.95 option. Their default is more than triple that.
I can get fresh jalepeno and pablano peppers on a pretty regular basis at the markets in Kaohsiung. If you dry the pablanos you get ancho chiles and if you smoke the jalepenos you get chipotle. So if you have some time and a smoker…
Forgot to post the results. It was tasty, but there were two issues, one my fault and one potentially resolvable:
I used chicken breasts, which ended up being somewhat dry and mostly flavourless in spite of the numerous scores I cut into them for the purposes of marinating. Breasts suck. I should have used thighs.
I’ve become hyper-sensitive to acid in my approach to middle-age, so the sour/tart combination of the achiote paste and orange juice left me suffering abdominally in spite of how much I enjoyed the taste. Would it hurt the recipe if the acidic proportions were reduced?
Many Westerners are accustomed to using chicken breasts because they’re such a clean, neat, boneless product, I guess. But they really are the driest, most flavorless part of the bird. Always buy thighs, or whole birds.
As for the acidity, sure, go ahead and cut the acids, then marinate it longer, and see what you think. Or marinade it with the strong acids, but then dump 2/3 of the marinade, keeping 1/3 plus the chicken and onions (maybe put it through a strainer), and then add a bit more achiote paste, or annatto seed powder. The achiote paste is more important for the flavor than the OJ or vinegar, although you do need some of the latter. Feel free to play around with it. You don’t have to stick to the recipe, really! That’s how you’ll learn.
I wonder what would happen if you did something to neutralize an acid after a marinade, like adding baking soda (besides foaming up briefly, I mean).
Sorry, I already ate the whole chicken (and it shows). 