POLLO AL HORNO con PATATA

                                                      POLLO AL HORNO con PATATA

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken (1.2 kg-1.3 kg)
juice of 5-6 calamansi (Philippine lemon)
1 cup soy sauce
½ cup water (if soy sauce is not too salty, reduce this to ¼ cup)
½ kg potatoes
¼ block butter
¼ cup fresh milk
salt and pepper
thick thread and large needle for sewing up the chicken
6 baby carrots (or 1 large carrot, cut with a crinkle cutter knife)

Procedure:

1. In a pot, boil your well cleaned potatoes.

2. In the meantime, mix together your calamansi juice, soy sauce and water in a cup. Inject this on the chicken, choose the fleshy parts and inject it, including the chicken legs and the wings. After injecting the chicken all over, make sure you massage the chicken so the marinade will be evenly distributed, otherwise you’ll find that your chicken looks like it has been beaten badly.

3. When your potatoes are cooked, drain the water, now it’s either you have calloused hands so you can handle the hot potatoes or you wait just a few minutes and immediately peel the potatoes, perhaps blowing hard at the potatoes to cool down and your aching hands at the same time. Either way there’ll be some heat on your lovely hands but don’t fret at least you won’t have discolored cooked potatoes. Please make sure not to drop the hot potatoes while trying to handle and peel them at the same time. Not good for your family’s health.

4. Now you’re ready to mash the potatoes with a fork or a masher, whichever you have at home. Put the butter so it melts, pour the fresh milk and add some salt and pepper, according to your taste (in other words, up to you, salty or not). Mix and mash well. Now pre-heat your oven at 350 degrees, you’ll need 10 minutes to do this.

5. You can now proceed to putting these mashed potatoes inside the cavity of your injected and massaged chicken. Push down the mashed potatoes as you spoon it in making sure that your chicken will be plump and juicy looking after you’ve stuffed it with the mashed potatoes. Should you have left over mashed potatoes, set aside, you would find that a lot of people would love second helpings of your mashed potatoes.

6. Now sew that chicken up. I know it feels like your doing some surgery or dressmaking but this is gonna be good. After it has been sewn up, you can put in a baking pan, either a stainless steel or glass dish. There will be some marinade seeping out, don’t worry…your chicken is juicy and tasty.

7. Start cooking the chicken in your pre-heated oven. A big chicken can take from an hour and a half to about 2 hours to cook. Please, check for doneness. I can always tell you it will take an hour or hour and a half and sound so precise and all-knowing but you know from my experience, honestly, it varies. Some ovens are hotter or some chicken is bigger and tougher to cook.

8. After an hour and fifteen minutes, you can put your baby carrots or your beautifully crinkle cut large carrot and cook it together with the chicken. Also check your carrots, once they are done and your chicken is not done, please take them out; let’s not start a fire here!!!

9. Okay this is not in my recipe, but my kids love mushrooms so I add the mushrooms together with the carrots sometimes. You may want to do the same thing. Put a whole can of button mushrooms, drained of all that salty water of course, if your kids love them.