Seco de Pollo

A traditional South American dish that can be made with chicken, goat or beef.

What You’ll Need

4-6 chicken thighs

One bottle of beer- I like Stella Artois but use what ever you have on hand

Two tomatoes stemed and quartered

One onion, peeled and quartered

One clove of garlic (add more if your heart begs it)

One small hot pepper- optional

1tbsp of cumin

Half a package of Achiote (Sazon Goya brand) if you can find real Achiote, use that instead as the flavor is better and more robust.

Sea Salt

4-5 black pepper corns pepper

Half a bundle of cilantro

Olive Oil

How to Make it

Start by pre-heating your oven to 350f or 175c.
Quarter your onion and tomatoes. If using a chili pepper stem and seed it, peel your garlic gloves. Place these into an oven safe dish, sprinkle with salt, drizzle with olive oil and toss.
Place in over and let roast for 25-30 minutes or until everything starts turning a nice golden brown.
While the vegetables are roasting, prep your chicken. Make sure your chicken is at room temperature to ensure it cooks evenly.

In a mortar combine sea salt, black pepper corns, cumin and achiote, grind into a fine powder.
(if you don’t have a mortar or achiote seeds, you can mix all in a small bowl, use a grinder for the black pepper corns.)

Sprinkle your spice mixture onto the chicken skin and let set.

Place the chicken, skin side down in a large pot brought to temperature over medium heat and let cook for 10 minutes before flipping over.

Once your vegetables are done, take them out of the oven and transfer them, and any juices in the pan into a large blender. Add your cilantro and bottle of beer until everything is well blended. Pour this mixture on top of the chicken. Reduce the heat to medium low and let simmer for 45 minutes to an hour.

Serve with rice and fried plantains, or roasted potatoes.

Origins

This was one of the first South American recipes I learned after meeting my husband. And it quickly became a favorite among our friends and family here in South America. When I first started to make it I was limited to what I could find in grocery stores in Maine. Real achiote was out and cilantro was sometimes hit or miss on if I could find it or not. But we made due and my husband still loved it as it reminded him of home.
When we moved to South America last year, I started making it for family gatherings as it was quick, in terms of prep, easy and could feed a lot of people. Family quickly started asking for the recipe and exclaiming “Que Rico! Esta seco is muy bien!” As you can imagine, its quite flattering to have people ask for your Seco de Pollo recipe when they’re moms have been making it for them their whole lives, and I’ve just been making it for just a few years. So I wrote it down, sent it out, and the Tia’s and the Prima’s started making it my way.
I will continue to share many of my favorite recipes here, some from South America, some from my time in Spain, and a lot that I learned in Maine or picked up from cooking shows or cook books or threw together on the fly. I know I’m just a white lady here, and I don’t want anyone to think that I am appropriating recipes or cultures. I’m simply taking great dishes I love and sharing my take on them. Food is fundamental to every single person on this planet, and the best way to share culture is by sharing food. I will never claim any of my foreign recipes are my creations.

I turn it over to you now; what do you want to make next? you can respond in the comments or send me an email at contactquerico@gmail.com

See you next time 💜
Love,
Sara