Chicken Pibil

Here you have another super easy dish for your 5 de Mayo Fiesta! I hope you like it!

Ingredients:

6-7 lbs Chicken cut in pieces
2 Large Oranges (1 cup orange juice)
4 - 6 Ounces Achiote Paste
1 Tbsp Dry Orégano
1 Tbsp Dry Marjoram
1 Tbsp fresh Thyme
3 Garlic Cloves
½ Cup White Vinegar
1 Bay Leaf (optional)
Salt (to taste)
Black Pepper (to taste)
1 Red Onion

To serve:

Tostadas
1 Red Onion
3 - 5 Habanero chilies
2 - 3 Limes
Salt (to taste)
Black Pepper (to taste)
2 Tsp Dry Oregano

To make the Sauce: In a blender place the Achiote paste, together with the vinegar, the orange juice (1 cup of orange juice), three garlic cloves and one tablespoon of each, Thyme, marjoram and dry orégano. Also add in ⅔ cups of water, and season with salt and black pepper to taste. You can also add one bay leaf if you want. Blend on high speed for a few minutes until you get a soft sauce. Once the sauce is ready, taste the flavor add more salt and pepper if needed, and if the sauce is too thick feel free to add more orange juice or water to thin it out.

Cut the chicken into pieces and place them in a bowl. Season the chicken pieces with salt and black pepper to taste. Pour the Achiote Sauce all over the chicken pieces, and make sure the chicken pieces are well seasoned with this sauce. You also want the sauce to be enough to cover the chicken pieces, so if you need to, feel free to add some chicken broth, more water or orange juice. Marinate the chicken in this mixture for at least two hours. If you have more time, feel free to marinate the chicken for a longer time, overnight will be even better!

This kind of chicken is served with a mixture of pickled habanero chilies and onion mixture. To make it: Cut a red onion into slices, and place them in a bowl, also cut 2 - 3 habanero chilies into slices, and place them in the same bowl with the onion, season this mixture with the juice of 2 or 3 limes, add salt and pepper to taste and about 1 - 2 teaspoons of dry orégano, toss together until combined, then taste the flavor add more salt and pepper if needed. Refrigerate for at least two hours before serving it. (it will be better if you prepare this mixture overnight, so the onion will have plenty of time to soften and absorb all the flavors.)

After at least two hours of marinating the chicken. Now preheat the oven to 350 ºF

Rinse the banana leaves with a bit of water and dry them with paper towels.

For easy cleaning, cover the inside of your baking pan with aluminum foil. And over the foil, place the banana leaves. You want the banana leaves to cover the bottom and all the sides inside of the pan. Now over the banana leaves place the chicken pieces and then pour all the Achiote sauce over the chicken pieces. Top this with one sliced red onion, sprinkle with salt and pepper and cover with the banana leaves.

Bake at 350ºF for one hour.

After an hour, the chicken should be cooked. Remove it from the oven, and check it. If it’s done, you can serve it in whole pieces. I’m going to shred it, to serve it on tostadas. So I’m using two forks to shred it, it’s very tender by now, so it will shred right away. After you shred it, return it to the oven for another 10 more minutes, so the shredded chicken can absorb all the sauce in the baking pan.

After 10 more minutes, now serve the chicken on tostadas. Top the tostadas with onion and habanero mixture and that’s it.