Pollo Ajillo Recipe — Garlic Chicken with Beer and Potatoes

Rosa was cooking this yesterday. I could smell it from the terrace — garlic, beer, something slow and good coming from next door. This morning I asked her what it was.

Pollo ajillo con cerveza. Garlic chicken with beer. She added peppers to hers. I had new potatoes and white cabbage and a free-range corn-fed chicken that needed jointing, so I made it my way.

One piece of advice she gave me that I will use every time: bash the garlic and add it at the end. Not at the beginning. Not softened in oil. Whole cloves, skins on, lightly bashed, stirred into the braise in the final few minutes. It's what makes a pollo ajillo recipe a pollo ajillo recipe rather than just garlic chicken.

The Pollo Ajillo Recipe

Ajillo comes from ajo — garlic — and the technique is one of the oldest in the Andalucían kitchen. The garlic isn't cooked into submission at the start. It goes in late, stays sweet and yielding, and perfumes everything around it without disappearing. A bay leaf, a pinch of pimentón, beer instead of wine. That's Rosa's version. That's the village version.

The new potatoes are my addition. They go in raw with the beer and braise alongside the chicken, absorbing the cooking liquor as they soften. The white cabbage goes in late — ten minutes before the end — wilting into the sauce with enough bite left to be worth eating. Don't add it too early.

Ingredients

• 2 chicken legs, thigh and drumstick separated (4 pieces)
• Small whole new potatoes, skin on
• White cabbage, cut into rough wedges
• 1 whole bulb of garlic, cloves separated, lightly bashed, skins on
• 200ml lager
• Aceite verde (or good olive oil)
• 2 bay leaves
• Pinch of pimentón (sweet or smoked)
• Sea salt and black pepper

Method

Brown the chicken
Season the pieces well with salt and pepper. Heat a generous splash of olive oil in a wide heavy pot over a medium-high heat. Add the chicken pieces skin-side down and leave them alone for 8–10 minutes until deeply golden. Turn briefly to colour the other side. Remove and set aside.

Build the braise
Pour off any excess fat, leaving a couple of tablespoons in the pot. Add the bay leaves and a pinch of pimentón. Pour in the beer — it will sizzle. Return the chicken to the pot and nestle the potatoes in around it. Season. Bring to a gentle simmer, lid on, over a medium-low heat.

Braise
Cook for 25–30 minutes until the potatoes are almost tender and the chicken is nearly cooked through.

Add the cabbage
Tuck the cabbage wedges in around everything. Lid back on, cook for a further 8–10 minutes until the cabbage has wilted but still has some bite.

Finish with garlic
Add the bashed garlic cloves — skins on — and stir through. Cook uncovered for a final 5 minutes. The garlic will soften into the liquor without losing its character. Taste, adjust seasoning, serve.

A note on quantities
This recipe makes enough for two portions. I ate one and froze the other — without the cabbage, which doesn't freeze well. The breasts went into the freezer separately.

Footnote:

This pollo ajillo recipe is featured in my Chicken Recipes hub — a collection of proper food from the Casa Adora kitchen and the road.

This recipe is also part of my Spanish Recipes collection — regional classics, tapas, seafood, rice dishes and food cooked from Andalucía and the road.

Find more recipes and food adventures here.

Wonky photos, proper food, genuine adventures — The Flexible Chef