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“I guess it’s a compliment that imitators of Peru’s famous rotisserie chicken are everywhere,” chef Ricardo Zarate writes in his book, “The Fire of Peru.” “Problem is, unless you happen to have a rotisserie grill, it can be difficult to mimic the slowly rotating spit that gives the chicken that almost black, fantastically charred crust that seals in the natural juices so the chicken doesn’t dry out.”
In fact, I’d say that there’s no way to make true pollo a la brasa — unless you own a rotisserie contraption for your oven or grill — though there are ways to capture the same combinations of flavors.
If you’ve ever been to a restaurant that serves pollo a la brasa, you know the garlicky, salty and specifically savory flavor of Peruvian-style rotisserie chicken. And you’ve likely seen the way chicken roasting on a spit against a steady flame can turn simultaneously succulent and crisp.
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Earlier this year, I was thinking of my first taste of pollo a la brasa. It was at the appropriately named Pollo a la Brasa in Los Angeles, a famous stop where the smoke rises high into the sky every afternoon, and pickup trucks regularly dump firewood near the shop’s back door. The loud thwack! of cleavers cutting cleanly, hitting wooden boards soaked in meat juices punctuates the usually jovial atmosphere. The menu is simple: Chicken, fries, salad, sauce.
Burnished as a well-baked loaf of bread, the deeply savory crust on a piece of pollo a la brasa gives way to tender meat. Its drippings soak into the fries that go on every plate — and they even enhance the forgettable green salad next to them.
At every pollo a la brasa spot I’ve been to there is also a sauce, yellow or red or — my favorite — green with herbs and chiles and lime juice. Aji serves as a pungent salve for all the rich meat and potatoes, and a dressing that makes even the tired leaves of romaine and iceberg worth eating.
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There’s a recipe for pollo a la brasa in Zarate’s book, which was written with Jenn Garbee. But it’s a complex affair, involving a sous-vide-like process followed by a sear on a hot grill to give the chicken that signature lick of fire.
Here, I borrowed elements from Zarate’s marinade and seasoning rub — a blend of soy sauce, vinegar, hot sauce, cumin and Peruvian mint — and his method of splitting the chicken fully in half so that it cooks evenly. But then I turned this riff on the Peruvian classic into a sheet-pan meal, with potatoes that sizzle in the juices of the chicken, turning french fry-like in the process.
Dip each forkful in the punchy aji verde, a creamy sauce that takes minutes to make in a blender and pairs well with so many savory dishes, whether they were roasted on a spit or not.
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