Peruvian Chicken Skewers
When ever I get Peruvian rotisserie chicken, the first thing I do is divorce the skin from the meat and set it aside to eat last because it's undoubtably the best part of the bird. I got to wondering recently....why not make a preparation of this dish that features that marinade more prominently, which is one of the reasons why that skin is so great. So in my first attempt to do so, I decided to try out the marinade on smaller pieces of chicken to dramatically increase the surface area in these Peruvian chicken skewers.
While the skin is my favorite part of a Peruvian-style bird, the highlight of the meal is usually the ají verde—that spicy green sauce that almost always is an accompaniment. Luckily, making this condiment is exceedingly simple and the only special ingredient required is ají amarillo paste, which can be found at most Latin markets. That paste isn't really main flavoring agent though, it's a combo of jalapeño, cilantro, and mayonnaise that forms the green herbal and spicy base of the sauce which is put together by simply dumping all the ingredients in a blender and giving them a whirl.
The first time I made Peruvian chicken, I was kind of surprised by the seasoning that gets applied to the birds prior to roasting. It's a mixture of lime juice, cumin, garlic, paprika, soy sauce, ají amarillo paste, and a little oil, which all combine into stronger and deeper flavor than is usually tasted in the final dish. So I was eager to see how this would work in my skewer application.
I wasted no time cutting up a few packs of boneless, skinless chicken thighs into cubes that were a suitable size for threading onto sticks. As I went along, I cut away any loose bits of meat and excessively fatty parts to make sure the meat would be as tender and easy to eat in the end as possible.
I placed all the chicken in a bag, poured in the marinade, sealed, and then tossed the bag a bit until the chicken was all throughly coated. After removing as much air from the bag as possible, I set it in the fridge and let the meat rest overnight. While I went for the long marinade, a shorter version is actually more appropriate due to the relatively high amount of acid—if I didn't have a need to prep the night before, I would have only marinated the chicken for two to four hours.
The next morning I threaded the meat onto skewers. When doing thigh meat, it's common for me to have to fold the pieces over and run the skewer through them at a couple points to create a uniform shape and ensure everything is well secured in a manner that it won't fall off or move around while grilling.
When it was time for cooking, I placed the skewers over direct high heat because I wanted to get some good browning and char in spots. Since thigh meat is fatty, that makes it quite forgiving and it can be cooked to, or above, an internal temperature of 165°F and still come out plenty juicy. This gave me confidence to grill the chicken to my desired doneness based on the exterior looks without fretting about interior temperature, which would not have been the case if I had gone with breast meat instead,
As I had hoped, the marinade featured really prominently in the flavor here, and that actually gave these skewers a pretty distinct stamp over a rotisserie bird. The earthiness of the paprika and cumin really came through, with good garlicky notes in each bite. There was a mild tang thanks to the lime juice, and the slightest heat from the ají amarillo paste and pepper. One of the reasons that chicken skin is so great is the self basting action that you only get from the rotisserie, and that was absent here, but since the flavor was so different to begin with, there wasn't the feeling that something was missing. Of course, these only got better with a dunk in ají verde, and when I ate it altogether on top of a bed of salt-seasoned rice, it came together as a hearty meal I can see myself making again and again.
