Versailles Famous Garlic Chicken

I've been nostalgic recently. I wonder if that means I'm getting old - or maybe just pregnant. Usually, I am nostalgic about food. I think about food a lot these days.

So the other day, I suddenly remembered having dinners with Pat at Versailles Cuban Restaurant on Venice in LA. We'd walk there from our apartment and it was always well worth the trip. Pat told me that when he did the LA marathon, he went there by himself after the race and ate the entire plate. The portion is huge so I usually only ate about a half of it. But always so good.

Versailles on Venice is 2,748 miles from our little home in Lawrenceville. It would take us 1 day and 18 hours to get there by car. Add in the LA traffic, it will take at least 5 days. That's a bit far so I decided to make it myself.

SO here's what's cooking:
Versailles Famous Garlic Chicken
black beans
fried plantains
rice

I didn't take a lot of photos while I was cooking but here's what I made:

THE chicken: I get a little squeamish playing with a whole chicken so Pat helped me a lot on this part. This is the chicken before I stuck it in the oven. Behind the chicken is my new and awesome 6.5 qt crockpot. It's programmable - very techie! The black beans are already starting to cook in there. Next to the chicken are some plantains. I was going to make this the weekend before when the plantains looked just right. But I put if off another week and the plantains basically turned black. I actually think I cooked it at the best time. The blacker the better.


The plantains - oh so sweet


The plantains - oh so fragrant


The complete meal with Chicken, black beans, plantains, and rice. When I took a bite of the chicken, I screamed and started to cry. It's been so long since I had Versailles's Chicken and can't remember how it was exactly. But the chicken that I put in my mouth just flooded me with memories. I immediately screamed for Pat to come and take a bite. He was waaaay impressed!



Versailles Chicken recipe: adapted from kookoonoodle.com

1 Whole Roasting Chicken
1 Bulb Garlic finely chopped
1 TBSP Sea Salt
Juice of 5-6 Limes
1 tsp Chili Powder
3 Onions, chopped
1 Cup Chicken Broth

Preheat oven to 350-degrees. Wash and pat dry the chicken. If you are squeamish like me, get someone else to do the job. Pat loves playing with raw whole chicken. Place chicken in roasting pan. Get someone like Pat to loosen the skin under the breasts and legs of the chicken. Combine the chopped garlic with the salt to make a paste. Spread most of the garlic salt mixture under the skin of the breasts and legs, then rub the remaining garlic salt all over the top of the bird. Sprinkle some chili powder all over chicken.

Cover the entire chicken with the sliced onions.

Pour the lime juice over the chicken and onions.

Sprinkle some more chili powder over the onions. (I didn't have chili powder so I sprinkled paprika - it's the same color....)

Roast in the oven for 20-minutes per pound or until done. Every 30 minutes, rotate the pan and baste with 1/4 cup or so of chicken stock. I also scooped up the lime juice from the bottom of pan and poured over chicken ever 30 minutes. It will come out super moist and delicious with lots of lime flavor.

plantains:
heat up plenty of canola oil in pan.
Cut plantains and fry them up until done.

black beans in crocpot:
OK. I am giving up my dream of becoming a food blogger. Writing recipe is tedious and boring. Check out this website for black bean recipe in crockpot. I never follow the recipes exactly due to lack of ingredients in my fridge and pantry. Just close enough is OK.

Rice:
I guess the rice that the Cubans eat is different from the rice that the Japanese eat. But we hardly ever have any other types of rice, other than Nishiki - medium grain rice. In my opinion, it's really the best you can easily get that's grown in the USA. So we ate this cuban meal with Japanese American rice. It was perfect.

Overall:
The flavors came together perfectly. When I tasted the black beans out of crockpot, I thought it lacked flavor. But eating it with the limey garlicky chicken and the oh so sweet plantains, the black beans were really just perfect. And of course, the rice ties everything together. This meal was truly exciting to make and to devour. Being able to make this gives us one less reason to go back to LA. I'm really starting to love Lawrenceville - now that I can have this chicken here in my home!