Pica Pollo — Dominican Fried Chicken
Pica pollo is the Dominican Republic's fried chicken: bone-in pieces marinated overnight, fried hard to order, and eaten with tostones and a loud garlic-citrus sauce called wasakaka.
What is pica pollo?
Pica pollo is Dominican fried chicken, sold from small neighbourhood spots called picapollos across the island. It is not the American buttermilk style and it is not Southern-style batter. The chicken is cut into small bone-in pieces, seasoned wet rather than breaded thick, and fried until the outside is genuinely hard.
The flavour comes from the marinade rather than from a coating. That is why a good pica pollo tastes seasoned all the way to the bone instead of only on the crust.
The overnight sour-orange marinade
Ours sits overnight in sour orange (naranja agria), oregano crushed between two palms, and a lot of garlic. The citrus does the work: it opens the meat up so the oregano and garlic go all the way in, and it keeps the chicken from tasting flat once it hits the oil.
The hard fry
Pica pollo is fried hard, to order. The marinade is patted back, the pieces go into hot oil, and they come out with a thin, blistered, craggy crust rather than a thick jacket. Fried to order is the whole point — it is why we fry one batch a day and stop when that batch is gone.
How it's served
With tostones — green plantains smashed and fried twice — or with thick-cut fries, and always with wasakaka on the side for dipping. A wedge of lime, a lot of napkins. That is the plate.