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Chicken Sancocho

Name: Chicken Sancocho
Prep time: 35
Cook time: 90
Cuisine: Latino, Hispanic, Caribbean

(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

35 min prep

10 servings

Sancocho is a beautiful, deliciously festive dish. This sancocho recipe has been tried and tested at our classes in Spanish and enthusiastically receives the thumbs-up every time we make it. Traditionally it is made...

Ingredients

1 whole chicken, skin and solid fat removed.

4 chicken feet, toe ends clipped

12 cloves of garlic peeled and crushed, divided,

¼ cup of bitter orange juice

1½ teaspoons dried oregano

1 tablespoon of salt

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 large yellow onion, diced (2 cups)

6 sweet ajicito peppers, cut into small dice (see Ann’s Tips)

12 leaves of culantro, divided (see Ann’s Tips)

10 cups of water or low sodium stock

1 cup of green plantain cut into 1-inch-dice

1 cup of yellow yautia (eddoes) cut into 1-inch-dice

1 cup yucca cut into 1-inch-dice

1 cup of carrots cut into 1-inch-long pieces

1 cup of turnip cut into 1-inch dice

4 cups kabocha cut into 1inch dice

1 cup of grated green plantain

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon of homemade sazon

½ cup finely chopped coriander

2 sliced avocados

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Nutrition Facts

Calories

595 cals

Fat

29 g

Saturated Fat

8 g

Polyunsaturated Fat

6 g

Monounsaturated Fat

13 g

Carbohydrates

46 g

Sugar

15 g

Fiber

6 g

Protein

39 g

Sodium

1183 mg

Directions

Cut the chicken into 10 pieces. Set aside in a baking dish.
Make the marinade: In a small bowl, mix together 6 cloves of the garlic and the bitter orange juice. Pour over the chicken, both pieces and feet. Mix well to coat. Leave to marinate for 30 minutes. Meanwhile in a mortar, mash the remaining 6 cloves of the garlic with the oregano and salt until it forms a paste. Set aside.
Heat a large skillet over hot-medium heat. Add the chicken and the marinade. Cook until the chicken turns white and opaque. Set aside.
Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-low flame. Add onions, ajicitos, and half of the garlic-oregano paste. Sweat the vegetables for 7 minutes or until the onions are transparent and starting to color. Add chicken and 8 leaves of the culantro. Cook for 5 minutes. Add the water and bring to a boil. Cover. Reduce the flame to low and simmer for 15 minutes.
Add the diced plantain and cook for 10 minutes. Add the yautía, the carrots, and the turnips. Cover and cook for 20 minutes.
Add the pumpkin and the remaining 4 culantro leaves. Cook for 15 minutes more. It should be just soft enough to mash against the side of the pan.
For the traditional presentation: Remove half of the vegetables from the sancocho with a slotted spoon and set aside. Discard the culantro leaves.
Stir the grated green plantain into the soup. Cook for 5 minutes. Return the vegetables to the pot and remove the soup from the stove. Add the apple cider vinegar and remaining garlic paste. Add the homemade ‘sazon’. If necessary, add more to taste. Let the soup sit 15 minutes for the flavors to develop. Taste for salt. Ladle chicken vegetables and broth into soup plates. Serve sprinkled with the chopped cilantro, and avocado slices on the side.

Chef Tips

Ajicito peppers look like pale green habaneros, but are small sweet with little or no heat. You can find them in Dominican and Puerto Rican groceries, but if that’s not an option, a couple of small Italian frying peppers or cubanelle peppers make a great substitute.

Spear shaped culantro or recao leaves are from the same family as cilantro and are great used whole to flavor soups and stews. You can use a whole branches of cilantro instead, I cilantro for 2 culantro leaves, and if the cilantro roots are still attached, keep them on as they have a lot of flavor.

And in the summertime, try adding chunks of fresh corn cob to the soup in step 8.

Registered Dietitian Approved

All our recipes are created by chefs and reviewed by our oncology-trained staff Registered Dietitian, Kate Ueland, MS, RD, to ensure that each is backed with scientific evidence and meets the standards set by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.