I know I shared a baked chicken recipe last week but this is so good, I didn’t have the patience to wait longer! I saw Peruvian rotisserie chicken being made on a cooking show once and unsurprisingly, it was added to my ever growing list of “things to make”. Do you keep a list of “things to make”? I actually have 4 5 lists. “Make for blog”, “Clients” (being recipes I create and shoot for clients), “Meals” (being my normal meals), “Ideas” (that list where 95% of the things on it never get made) and “ABSOLUTELY MUST TRY”. This chicken made the “ABSOLUTELY MUST TRY” list instantly. Straight to the top of the queue! As soon as I saw the recipe, I knew it was my type of food. Easy to make, every day ingredients and kapow! flavours. I’ve never been to Peru, but from the research I’ve done, this chicken is known as Pollo la Brasa (Peruvian Blackened Chicken) and is by far the most popular chicken dish in Peru.
Traditionally, this is made like a rotisserie chicken over charcoals. So this version I’m sharing doesn’t have that lovely smokey flavour but there’s certainly plenty of flavour from the marinade to make up for it! Soy sauce is a surprising ingredient in the marinade for this recipe. I was very interested to read about Chinese and Japanese influence on Peruvian cuisine owing to waves of immigration starting in the 1900’s. I love that Peruvians embraced the new ingredients the early immigrants introduced, like soy sauce. I decided to serve this with a buttery garlic rice. Not sure if it’s strictly Peruvian, but honestly, it goes with it so well and is so delicious that you can eat it plain. Seriously!
I must have read 20+ recipes for Peruvian Roast chicken. And unsurprisingly, every single recipe is different! As with every traditional dish, there is no single recipe. The key ingredients that are common across all recipes are soy sauce, garlic, paprika, cumin and something to add tag (lime or vinegar). So I made my own guided by those recipes I read – I’ve referenced a few in the recipe. The marinade is actually very straight forward and it’s a matter of just getting the proportions right to suit your palette. I like strong flavours so the marinade for mine is probably stronger than other recipes. I also up the flavour a bit to compensate for the absence of the charcoal flavour. Hope you consider trying this!! – Nagi x PS I roasted this in the oven to get the beautiful even browning on the skin you can see in the photos but it’s also really delicious cooked on the BBQ or even on the stove.
