So it’s been awhile since we’ve talked about pollo a la parrilla (chicken on the grill). I know, I know, it’s seemingly sacrilege. We’re Steaks by Luis! We do beef! Why bother with chicken?! Well believe it or not there are some people here in Argentina that eat chicken, sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, steak is the staple but that doesn’t mean we can’t get creative from time to time and mix it up. But what’s the best way to go about chicken on the grill? How can you still have a classically Argentine asado but include this poultry asado poser? My suggestion would be to slap a entire chicken on the grill.
When preparing a whole chicken to put on the grill there are several ways you can cut it. After removing the innards you can cut it lengthwise along the sternum or you can cut it a la rana which mean ‘frog style‘. This with this method the leaves the entire breast in tact sort of jaw-like in cut. While the first mentioned method is a bit more traditional and has been tested numerous times the second ‘frog style’ cut is good because it places the chicken flatter on the grill. All in all as long as you make sure that the chicken is entirely cooked through there’s no greatly noticeable difference between the two.
As for preparation, as long as the chicken comes fully plucked and gutted there’s not much else to do besides adding salt, just like most other Argentine meat preparations. If you’re trying to get a bit more fancy with it you can add something a little bit more herbacious like rosemary or thyme into the cavity of the chicken in order to take it to the next level. Of course, in true Argentinian way, you want the chicken to taste like chicken not like it’s got some fanciful fruit glaze on it; that just won’t do.
The chicken should go bone down first because it will take the longest time to heat up and once hot it will help cook the chicken from the inside out. Chicken unlike a t-bone steak however, is a bit more complicated. First off, as I’m sure we’re all aware, unless you want to poison your guests with salmonella you’ll need to make sure the chicken is thoroughly cooked all the way through. This can cause a bit of a timing issue as chicken takes longer to cook than say a steak. To coincide with our Argentine asado timing schedule it would ideally go on just after or right along with the morcilla and choripan.
Steak Buenos Aires 