Cuban Mojo Chicken Legs

When you want your chicken dishes to feel all bright and festive, you turn to the warm weather countries for inspiration. 

Those countries that live closer to the equator, the ones that have all the bright colours and spices in their cooking and clothing! Whether it’s Mexico, Spain, Portugal, Jamaica, Costa Rica, or all their neighbours, these cuisines know how to make dishes feel like a party.

So, today it’s going to be my tribute to Cuba.  Mojo Pork and Cubano sandwiches are always a favourite around here.  One day I should sit down and write out what I do for the sandwiches so that we can make them up here where getting Cuban breads is more challenging.  But in the meantime, I’ve decided to take the marinade for the pork roast, and apply it to chicken legs.  I thought about it, we can never have too many chicken recipes, chicken legs are easy to come by, and the flavours are perfect as we transition to summer cooking.  In fact, this could totally be made on the grill if you wanted.  Just add some grilled Mexican Street Corn, and a salad, and you have a fiesta fit for a king!  Plus this way you get the Mojo flavours, without hours of slow roasting a pork.  The gratification is far more immediate!

Mojo is really just the distinct flavours of citrus, fresh herbs and garlic.  And a bit of heat.  Combining lime and orange juices, chopping up large handfuls of fresh oregano and mint, and mincing some garlic and red chilli peppers creates a wonderful marinade that permeates the chicken.  The citrus acts as a tenderizer, and all the spicy goodness gets soaked into all the pores.  You can marinate the chicken pieces for a few hours, or even overnight.  The longer the better of course.  Just don’t go past the 24 hours, or else you will actually start to break down the integrity of the meat proteins.

Then it is a simple roasting in the oven.  This is exactly what I do with my pork roast as well.  (I’ll definitely share it soon) But if you wanted to fire up the grill, you can grill the pieces over medium low heat till cooked through, and then sear towards the end for colour.  With roasting in the oven, you can collect the pan juices to create a wonderful sauce to drizzle over the finished chicken.

Of course, you can use thighs or drumsticks, or even a whole chicken cut up into pieces.  On the bone retains more flavour as the chicken cooks.  These were pretty good sized legs, so one per person is generous.  If you are using thighs etc, just be a judge of how much meat will satisfy your eaters. Healthy appetites may eat two thighs easily.  So do your count accordingly.  I would always rather make extra than just enough any way.  This way you have leftovers.  Or at least enough chicken to turn into a wicked chicken salad sandwich!

If you are grilling your chicken, you won’t have these juices to work with.  So what I would do is save the marinade liquid and cook it down on the stove top.  Cook on medium high to ensure that any raw residual chicken presence is gone.  You will probably end up reducing the liquids by about half.  Then you can finish as I describe below, with additional citrus and fresh herbs.

The most recent time I made this dish, I served a wonderful Mexican Red Rice and Pico de Gallo by Suzy over here at Life Limon y Sal  If you want an amazing Red Rice recipe, I highly recommend this one.  The Roasted Tomato Recaudo that is the base for the recipe is so amazing.  I have extra in the freezer that I can’t wait to use again!  I turned some of the leftover rice and pico de gallo into a really fun Mexican Fried Rice.  Just added onions, red and green peppers, olives, and some leftover shredded chicken to the skillet.  Finished it off with sliced avocado and crumbled feta (I didn’t have any queso fresco)  Jim loved it.  And not because he had to!

So while this dish can definitely be made in the summer, with it’s bright and happy flavours, make it in December just to keep summer alive! 

Love Jen