Spanish Garlic Chicken with Crisped Potatoes and Green Beans
Pollo al ajillo done in one skillet: potato coins crisped in olive oil, chicken thigh strips browned over them, ten cloves of garlic, and a splash of vinegar off the heat.
Why You'll Love This Recipe
Pollo al ajillo is a bar dish in Spain, cooked fast in a shallow pan and brought out sizzling with bread to mop the garlic oil. I have turned it into a whole dinner by crisping potatoes in the same pan first and throwing green beans in at the end, so one skillet gets you a plate with everything on it. It takes half an hour, most of which is the potatoes cooking while you do something else, and it uses an amount of garlic that looks like a mistake and is not. The shopping list is five things and four of them are probably in your kitchen already, which is why this one gets made on the nights nobody planned anything.
The pan gets used in stages, and that is the whole method. Potatoes go in first with a lid on, so they steam through and then crisp when the lid comes off, and the fat they leave behind is what the chicken browns in. Thighs are the cut for this because they can sit in a hot pan for six or seven minutes and come out juicy, where breast would tighten and go dry. The garlic goes in near the end, sliced rather than chopped, since sliced garlic can spend a minute in hot oil and turn nutty while chopped garlic burns and goes bitter.
It tastes like a dish that took much longer than it did, which is mostly the smoked paprika and the vinegar. The paprika goes in off direct heat so it does not scorch, and the vinegar goes in with the burner off, where it hits the hot fat and comes up as a sharp cloud of steam. I put the pan straight on the table with lemon wedges and let people work through it, and there is never anything left in the bottom but garlic slices and a little orange oil. It is the sort of dinner that makes a Wednesday feel like somebody made an effort, and the washing up is one skillet and a cutting board.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch strips
- 1 lb Yukon Gold potatoes, scrubbed and cut into 1/4-inch coins
- 10 oz green beans, stem ends trimmed and halved crosswise
- 10 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 3 tbsp olive oil, divided
- 1 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 1/2 tbsp sherry vinegar, or cider vinegar
- 2 bay leaves
- 2/3 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
- 1/4 tsp cayenne, or a dried guindilla chile, broken
- Juice of 1/2 lemon, plus wedges to serve
- 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- Scant 1/2 tsp fine sea salt, divided
Instructions
- Crisp the potatoes: Warm 2 tbsp of the olive oil in a large heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the potato coins in an even layer with the bay leaves and a pinch of the salt, cover, and cook for 8 minutes, shaking the pan once or twice. Take the lid off, turn the heat up to medium-high, and cook 3 to 4 minutes more without stirring, until the undersides are deep gold and crisp. Move them to a plate.
- Brown the chicken: Pat the chicken strips dry and season them with half the salt and the black pepper. Add the last 1 tbsp of oil to the pan and lay the chicken in a single layer. Leave it undisturbed for 3 minutes so a crust forms, then turn and cook 3 to 4 minutes more, until the pieces are golden on two sides and cooked through at 175°F.
- Add the garlic: Turn the heat down to medium. Scatter in the sliced garlic and the cayenne and cook for 60 to 90 seconds, stirring constantly, until the slices turn pale gold and smell sweet and nutty. Watch them closely, because the gap between gold and burnt is about twenty seconds at this temperature.
- Green beans and paprika: Add the green beans and 2 tbsp water, cover, and cook for 3 minutes, until they turn bright green and lose their squeak but keep their snap. Uncover, return the potatoes to the pan, sprinkle the smoked paprika over everything, and toss for 1 minute so the paprika coats the oil rather than sitting on the metal.
- Finish off the heat: Take the pan off the burner and add the vinegar and lemon juice, which will hiss and steam. Toss everything once, add the parsley and the rest of the salt, and taste. Pull out the bay leaves and bring the skillet to the table with lemon wedges on the side.
Variations
- Sherry and bay: Add a splash of dry sherry with the garlic and let it bubble away for a minute for the bar version served all over Andalusia.
- Piquillo peppers: Stir in a handful of sliced piquillo or roasted red peppers with the potatoes for sweetness against the garlic.
- Chorizo edge: Render two ounces of chopped Spanish chorizo before the potatoes and cook everything in that red fat.
- Rabbit or pork: Swap the chicken for diced rabbit or pork loin, both of which are cooked al ajillo just as often in Spain.
- Shrimp finish: Add half a pound of shrimp for the last 2 minutes, which turns it into something closer to gambas al ajillo with potatoes.
Storage & Leftovers
It keeps four days in a sealed container in the refrigerator. The chicken and green beans hold up well, while the potatoes soften and give up their crisp edges overnight, which is the one thing about this dish that does not survive. The garlic and paprika settle deeper into everything, so the flavor is arguably better on day two.
Reheat it in a dry skillet over medium-high for 3 to 4 minutes, spread flat and left alone for the first two minutes so the potatoes have a chance to crisp again. The microwave will heat it evenly but everything comes out soft. A fresh squeeze of lemon after reheating brings the whole pan back into focus.
It freezes for up to two months, though I would freeze the chicken and beans and skip freezing the potatoes, which turn mealy. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and reheat in a hot pan with a teaspoon of olive oil. Fry a few fresh potato coins while it warms if you want the plate to look like it did the first night.
Notes & Tips
- Slice the potatoes thin: A quarter inch is the number. Thicker coins need steam for longer than the rest of the recipe allows and you end up with chalky middles.
- Lid on, then lid off: Covered, the potatoes cook through. Uncovered and undisturbed, they crisp. Doing both in that order is the whole technique.
- Slice the garlic, do not chop it: Slices have the surface area to go gold without burning. Minced garlic in a pan this hot turns bitter before you can stir it twice.
- Paprika goes on last: Smoked paprika scorches in seconds on bare metal and turns acrid. Add it once there is food in the pan to carry it and toss quickly.
- Dry the chicken: Straight from the package it is wet, and wet chicken steams gray. Thirty seconds with paper towel gets you the brown crust you are after.
- Vinegar with the burner off: Poured into a pan still on the heat it boils away to nothing. Off the heat it keeps its sharpness and lifts the garlic and paprika.
Nutrition & Mindful Eating
- Chicken thighs, potatoes, and green beans give this skillet its three parts. The thighs carry the protein, the potatoes make it a dinner rather than a snack, and the beans keep a pan of meat and starch from feeling heavy.
- Chicken thigh is a darker, more forgiving cut than breast, and that extra fat is why it stays juicy through a hard sear. It brings iron and zinc along with its protein, both of which run higher in the dark meat.
- Gold potatoes cooked in their skins keep their potassium and their fiber, and the covered start followed by a dry finish is what gives you a crisp face and a creamy middle from the same coin.
- Garlic sliced thin and cooked gently in olive oil turns sweet and nutty, and the sulfur compounds behind that smell are the ones that have been studied most closely in garlic.
- Smoked paprika and a spoonful of vinegar at the end are doing the work that salt would otherwise be asked to do, and the paprika brings the carotenoids that give the oil its orange color.
- As you eat, look for the slices of garlic hiding under the potatoes and notice how sweet they have gone, and let the pan on the table slow the meal down the way sharing usually does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use chicken breast?
You can, with a lighter hand. Cut it into 1-inch pieces, season it the same way, and give it 2 minutes a side rather than 3, pulling it at 165°F. Breast has less fat to protect it in a hot pan, so it goes from done to dry quickly. Thighs are what this dish is built around and they are far more forgiving on a weeknight.
Ten cloves of garlic is a lot. Is that right?
It is right, and it does not taste as strong as it sounds. Sliced garlic cooked slowly in oil loses its bite and turns sweet and nutty, which is a completely different thing from garlic crushed and thrown in at the end. The dish is named for the garlic. If you want it milder, slice the cloves thicker so they cook more gently.
What if my potatoes are still hard when the lid comes off?
Put the lid back on for another 3 minutes with a tablespoon of water in the pan. Steam is what cooks the middles, and thicker coins or a crowded pan will need more of it. Cut them thinner next time, since 1/4 inch is what makes this work inside half an hour.
What goes with it?
It is already a full plate, so nothing is required. If you are feeding more people, bread to wipe the pan is the traditional move, and a plain green salad with sherry vinegar and olive oil sits well beside it. A bowl of white beans warmed with olive oil stretches it to six without much effort.