Pollo Guisado

Ingredients

• 1 kg bone-in chicken thighs and drumsticks
• 2 limes, halved, plus their juice
• 1 tbsp white vinegar
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 6 garlic cloves, crushed to a paste
• 1½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp black pepper
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 heaped tbsp granulated sugar
• 1 red onion, sliced
• 1 green pepper, in strips
• 3 culantro leaves, or a small handful of coriander
• 2 tbsp tomato purée
• 300 ml chicken stock or water
• a small handful of green olives

Method

1. Wash and season the chicken

   Rub the chicken with the cut limes and the vinegar, rinse, then dry it well and rub in the garlic, oregano, salt and pepper. Leave it at least twenty minutes — an hour is better. This is sazón, and it is the whole flavour of the dish; nothing added later reaches inside the meat.

   20 min

2. Burn the sugar

   Heat the oil in a heavy pot, add the sugar and leave it until it turns the colour of dark tea and starts to smoke faintly. This is what makes a guiso Dominican rather than merely braised — pull it a shade early and the stew stays pale, take it too far and the whole pot is bitter.

   3 min

3. Sear the chicken in the caramel

   Lay the chicken in skin-side down and let it brown properly in the burnt sugar, turning once. Do it in two batches if the pot is crowded; the pieces have to fry, not steam.

   10 min

4. Sofrito on top of the meat

   Add the onion, pepper, culantro and tomato purée and stir them through the fat until the vegetables soften and the purée darkens. Cooking the purée for a minute or two takes the raw tin edge off it.

   5 min

5. Braise

   Pour in the stock, scrape the bottom of the pot clean, cover and simmer gently for half an hour until the chicken is falling off the bone and the sauce has reduced to a glossy gravy.

   30 min

6. Olives at the end

   Stir in the olives, taste for salt and let it sit off the heat for five minutes. Serve with white rice and habichuelas guisadas — the sauce is meant to be spooned over the rice, so keep it looser than you think.