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Monday, October 13, 2014

Oven-Roasted Mojito Chicken

This is an easy chicken dish that's full of vibrant but mild flavors.  I found it in the Dinosaur BBQ cookbook, and even though I had never seen had it at their restaurant in many dozens of visits there, I could tell that it had potential.  Some combination of the garlic, the slowly sauteed onions bathed in drippings, and the citrus-tenderized chicken made this dish hard to beat, and able to stand on its own as a centerpiece or complement a latin feast, as I did last night.

The name of the dish refers to the sauce that is used as a marinade for the dish.  There are a couple of kinds of mojo sauce, much like the words "curry" or "salsa" can be confusing, but we're focused on the Cuban variant here.  Searching for some backstory has led me to others that will be featured in future recipes.  Traditionally served over pork and/or yuca when referring to the Cuban mojo sauce, this is most commonly defined by a mixture of bitter orange juice, garlic, olive oil, and oregano.  Omit the oregano and you get mojito marinade, not to be confused with the minty rum drink.  This recipe does contain oregano, it's not enough to dominate the flavor, so I won't change the title to indicate the parent sauce.  Also, since I have never seen bitter oranges for sale, I stick to a ratio of 8 parts regular OJ to 1 part lime juice, and freshly squeezed for both whenever possible.