The Pica Pollo My Grandmother Never Wrote Down (Dominican Fried Chicken)

There is a window in every Dominican neighborhood where the fried chicken comes out in a paper bag, and you can hear the crust from across the street. People try it at home and it comes out pale and soft, and they decide the shop has some machine or some powder. There is no machine. There are three things, and my mother never wrote any of them down — she just did them, every Friday night, for the men coming off the shift. I'm Rosa. I cooked for twenty-four years in a Dominican kitchen in Washington Heights. Today I am writing it down out loud, because a recipe nobody writes down eventually dies. The three things: the overnight sour-orange bath, a thin ragged coating that is not a batter, and two temperatures instead of one. The method, so you can keep it (feeds 6): • 1 chicken, about 3½ lb, cut into small pieces — or 3 lb thighs and drumsticks • THE BATH, overnight: juice of 3 sour oranges or 6 limes, 6 cloves garlic mashed, 1 tbsp oregano crushed in the palm, 2 tbsp sofrito, 2 tsp salt, black pepper. 8 hours, 4 at the very least. • THE COATING: 1½ cups flour, ¼ cup cornstarch, 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp oregano, ½ tsp black pepper — then flick in a spoonful of the wet marinade and rub it through with your fingers until there are little ragged crumbs. Those crumbs are the craggy crust. • Drip, pat dry, press into the flour, shake off the loose, rest the coated pieces on a rack 15 minutes. • FIRST FRY 325°F, 10–12 minutes for bone-in, in batches, never crowded. Rest on a rack, uncovered, 10 minutes. • SECOND FRY 375°F, 1–2 minutes, until it is copper-penny colored and sounds hollow when the tongs tap it. • Salt it hot, straight onto a rack — never paper, never covered. Lime on the side. Careful with the oil: the pot goes no more than half full, the chicken goes in dry, and a grease fire gets smothered with a lid, never water. Did your family fry it with flour or without? Half the island swears there should be no flour at all. And what did your family call the little cabbage salad that comes with it? Tell me where your family is from in the DR. I read every comment. Next video: moro de habichuelas, rice and beans cooked together in one pot.