Peruvian Chicken

I found this lovely recipe from a local blogger at Andrea’s Recipes, and although I do not own a grill pan or grill, I wanted to try it! Yesterday I made a big batch of these for people before we watched the BSG finale, and results were conclusively good.  I made the marinade the night before and results after 24 hours were awesome.  The marinade has a nice soy sauce base, but it’s balanced out by the acidity of the lime juice and given more complexity with the addition of cumin and paprika. Drizzling lime juice on afterwars is also awesome. I used boneless chicken thighs and then paired them with sauteed green beans (of the frozen variety), zucchini, and summer squash. 

 I also anticipated the chicken being really flavorful, so I made some rotini pasta on the side with a bit of balsamic vinaigrette with parsley to balance it out.  All in all, will definitely make this again, especially when it becomes summer and I have a chance to steal someone’s grill to use!

Lighting pictures of food is tough, especially when I have limited lighting resources (two overhead lights) and it’s 8PM.  Bah, I’m going to have to come up with a solution to this! 

Below is the recipe pulled from Andrea’s site: 

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup (80 ml) soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 5 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 whole chicken (about 3 1/2 pounds/1.5 kilos), quartered (I use 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts on the grill pan.)
• lime wedges

Preparation

1. MARINATE: Whisk together soy sauce, lime juice, garlic, cumin, paprika, oregano, pepper, and oil. Put chicken in a large sealable bag and add marinade. Seal the bag and marinate in the refrigerator 8 to 24 hours.

2. Discard the marinade, then pat chicken dry. **I didn’t pat it dry, just dumped them straight into the pan

3. Preheat the pan over medium-high and add the chicken. Place the chicken pieces on the pan, cooking 7 to 10 minutes per side (less if they are boneless or very thin), turning once. **As Spanky often says, don’t push the meat around a lot or flip it tons of times, you’ll get better and faster results if you leave them alone.  Also, I just used a regular, heavy-bottomed nonstick frying pan.

4. Squeeze lime juice over the chicken and serve.