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Pollo Guisado (Stewed Chicken)
Ingredients
- 5 pieces Chicken Can use whatever cut you like, I've used thigh, legs, and breast. Also, you can use as much or as little chicken pieces, just alter your seasoning amounts.
- White Vinegar for Cleaning
- 1-2 tbsp Adobo
- 1 packet Sazon
- 1/2 tbsp dominican oregano
- 1 Chicken Bouillon I like the powdered version so about 1-2 tbsp if using that.
- 1 Green Pepper
- 1 Red Pepper
- 1 Cubanelle Pepper
- 1 Red Onion
- 6 Garlic Cloves
- 1/2 tbsp sofrito optional
- 1-2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp alcaparrado olives
- 1 juice of lime
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 1-2 cups water
- canola or vegetable oil
- sugar, salt, and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Begin by first washing your chicken in a water and vinegar combination. Let soak for a few minutes before rinsing and patting dry.
- Rough chop veggies: Green, Red, and Cubanelle Peppers. And Quarter the Onion. The larger you chop the veggies the easier it is for people to remove if they don't like. Set Aside
- In a mortar and pestle, add garlic cloves, salt, dominican oregano, and pepper. Set aside.
- To your dried chicken, add seasonings – adobo, chicken bouillon, sazon, dominican oregano, and pepper.
- Add juices – soy sauce, lime, sofrito, and olives.
- With gloves, rub marinade all over the chicken in all the crevices.
- Add Veggies and Garlic to chicken and mix again.
- Let marinate anywhere from 30 minutes to one day. The longer the marinade, the better seasoned the meat will be. When I am in a pinch, I put the marinated chicken in the fridge while I prep the beans and rice.
- In a pan – preferably the aluminum imusa ones – add oil with a sprinkle of sugar. Once sugar is brown, add meat (wipe all the veg and garlic off as to not burn) and start to brown. Remove browned meat as needed to make room for more.
- Meanwhile, add tomato paste to the leftover vegetables. Mix.
- Add veggies and tomato into the chicken and stir and cook for a few minutes as to combine the paste.
- Add water to the vegetable bowl to clean out all that marinade and pour into meat.
- Bring stew to simmer. Partially cover with lid and let cook medium to medium low till stew has reduced and chicken has fully cooked – roughly 35-45 minutes.
Video
My Obsession with Pollo Guisado
Ever since I met my boyfriend, I have been infatuated with making food that reminded him of his own culture. So naturally, my hunt for Dominican recipes and learning from his mother became quite an obsession. One cooking blog that has truly been a great deal of help is Chef Zee which is what influenced this recipe. However, unlike her recipe, my boyfriends mother taught me a couple of tricks that I will share with you here. I have become so obsessed with this chicken, that I make this meal at least once a week as a go to dinner.
For starters, mashing the garlic with seasonings makes a great difference as opposed to just adding the cloves. I truly believe it adds a lot of flavor. Secondly, not everyone likes to eat peppers and onions. His mother told me the larger you chop the vegetables, the easier they are to remove when serving. This works out perfectly for a pretty serving dish.
There are just some things that we do not have on hand in our pantry for every recipe and often we can make substitutions. Unfortunately, there are things we simply cannot substitute here. And while I hope you can find it in your local stores, in case you cannot, I will provide you links. Trust me it is worth it! I will insert each link within the paragraph and then again towards the end. As reminder, I am an amazon affiliate and I may receive a small commission from amazon at no cost to you. Please see the disclaimer for any further information.
Some Essentials for The Recipe
One of the essential ingredients, is Dominican Oregano which I honestly use more often now since I have it than I had prior. I used it in my Birria Tacos – recipe coming soon – and it is essential in many the Dominican recipe. The one I use I purchased from my local Superfresh which has an amazing selection of international foods. However, it can be found online as well from Soy Dominicano.
An ingredient that is based on preference is the Chicken Bouillon. I honestly prefer to use the powdered version since it makes life easier rather than crushing the little cubes up. But again, this is based on what you like or what you have on hand.
Another preference based option is Tomato Paste. Ok, so hear me out. Tomato paste used to annoy me so much. While it was cheap, it was extremely wasteful. I would use a table spoon or so and then have to throw the rest out. Then, I found out you could freeze it, then that annoyed me cause I would have to freeze it on a tablespoon and then put it in a ziploc and so on and so forth. Not only was the process annoying, but it also had a different taste in my opinion.
Then I found the Cento Tomato Paste tubes. GAME. CHANGER. For starters, I squeeze out what I need, and put the tube in the fridge for the next time I need it. Yes, they are more money. But when you add up all the cans of tomato paste I have bought and tossed, well I think it saves me plenty. I buy them in bulk and keep them in the fridge. I literally always have it on hand. 10/10 recommend.
And the last ingredient – which you will be able to find in the Spanish section of your supermarket (here is hoping that you have one) is the olives. Now, I believe there are different types of olives you can use, but in my opinion the olives mixed with the red peppers and without the capers are the most flavorful. Now, I don’t eat them – but the juice of the olives does add flavor to the chicken mixture.
Some Notes About the Recipe
As I mentioned before, the longer you marinate the better the chicken will be. However, yesterday, and I waited little to no time to marinate. Basically, I prepped everything and then put it in the fridge while I got everything else ready for dinner. So I chopped veggies and washed beans and rice. Set them all up and put them on the stove, then finally took the chicken out for frying. I would say 20 minutes or so. This recipe is very forgiving.
The only salt I added was to the mortar and pestle to help the garlic smush. This is because soy sauce, sazon, and adobo are all very salty. Taste your food. It is much easier to add more salt then it is to remove. I actually don’t know how to remove salt so -yeah. Just be careful.
Some other tips:
- Cut the veg into chunks. Its a time saver for you cause who wants to dice. #letsbehonest.
- Use gloves. Between the seasoning coloring and raw chicken – keep it clean!
- If your stew gets too dry, add more water. If it gets too watery, remove some or half cover with lid and put to medium low to cook out.
Everyone needs those aluminum pans. They are great for making rice, meats, and stews. They are quite multipurpose. I honestly do not know how to cook Spanish food in any other pan. Something about the aluminum makes it tastier – who the heck knows! I like Imusa. I have more frequently seen them in my local grocery stores as well as target which is a great advance from having to go to Sunset Park in Brooklyn to buy them from 5th Ave. They are also available on Amazon.
And, as far as chicken goes – dealers choice. I love a good leg. However, my boyfriend doesn’t. So, I mix some breast and thighs for him and some legs for me. And while you can use a bone in breast, I prefer boneless and get the savory-ness of the bones from the legs since I also get boneless thighs. You can use whatever chicken you desire – after all you are the the one pickin’ your type of chicken’. See what I did there. 🙂
Lastly, as this is a ridiculously long post – the bones of this recipe are the basics for ANY Guisado. You can use the same ingredients and recipe for any meats such as oxtail, beef, ribs – whatever. I don’t know if ribs are common, but who cares. DO what You want. If you want the oxtail version please let me know so I can do that for you! Till then fellow cooks – enjoy!!!
