The restaurant industry in the United States rakes in almost seven hundred billion dollars per year. More and more of that is being spent on emerging tastes, such as Latin cuisine, with Mexican, Peruvian, Spanish, pan-Latin, and other authentic Latin American cuisine restaurants drawing more and more of Americans’ dining dollars. And although its emergence has been longer and more steady, there is another rising star among Latin restaurants: rotisserie chicken. Casual and fast food Latin cuisine restaurants that serve rotisserie chicken are growing in popularity, and there are even options now for rotisserie chicken delivery. But what goes into the best rotisserie chicken, and what is the history of this versatile, delicious, and convenient dinner and dining staple?
Beyond the Grocery Store
Rotisserie chicken is affordable, delicious, convenient, versatile, and often cold by the time it is transported from the roasting spit in the grocery store and all the way back to your dining room table. And efforts to reheat it often drain it of its tender juiciness, cause its crisp and golden skin to go limp and mealy, and leave it nothing like the masterpiece it appeared to be while turning in the glass-fronted ovens behind a grocery counter. And while some eager home cooks attempt to replicate the rotisserie chicken at home, they’re more often than not disappointed with the results yielded by makeshift rotisseries and inconsistent ovens. Others have discovered that rotisserie chicken, authentic and faithful to traditions in Latin cuisine, can be delivered hot to their doors in just minutes.
Rotisserie Roasting
Roasting by rotisserie is a cooking process that may be as old and as well-mastered as any extant process for cooking or heating food, and is likely familiar to most readers: uncooked meats, in this case, chicken, are fixed to a spit and roasted over a heat source as they slowly rotate for even heat distribution. Over thousands of years, of course, the process has been refined: the best-prepared rotisserie chicken, like that prepared in Latin restaurants, is expertly cooked, with precise and tried measurements for heat, time, rate of rotation, and other factors all designed to produce the most beautifully cooked chicken perfect for dining whether it’s delivered to your door or ordered for dining in.
Evolution
The rotation of the bird over the heat source or flame was, of course, performed manually for thousands of years. It required turning a spit continuously as the chicken roasted. Now, there are machines that are calibrated to rotate the meat precisely and produce tender, juicy chicken that is commonly eaten as a main course but also used as an element in other dishes, from pot pies, to barbecue, to some of the best healthy chicken wings you’ve ever had.
Pollo a la Brasa
What separates the best rotisserie chicken from the rotisserie chicken prepared in grocery stores and on your home grill is the tradition. Rotisserie chicken familiar to Latin cuisine is from the Peruvian tradition. It’s known as “brasa,” the Spanish word for “grill,” or as “pollo a la brasa” in Latin cuisine. There are many variations of pollo a la brasa, but all of them involve roasting a chicken by rotisserie.
Coals Versus Flame
Many home-cook versions of rotisserie chicken, as well as those prepared in grocery stores, roast the chicken with flame. In Latin cuisine, the chicken is roasted over coals, with special timing and equipment that is not widely used in groceries or home kitchens.
Get Rotisserie Chicken Delivered
You can get rotisserie chicken, prepared in the Brasa style, delivered by one of the best South Beach Latin restaurants: Chicken Brasa. No other method of preparing chicken is as healthy, convenient, affordable, and versatile as rotisserie chicken. And now, you can get it hot, too, served in or delivered out.
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