Pollo al Chilindrón (Blended)

• 2.25 lb bone-in chicken thighs (about 4 large) — skin and fat pulled off (155 g on the v1 cook), leaving 790 g bone-in; bones came to 105 g, so ~685 g of meat. Pull the skin with a paper towel for grip; keep the bone in.
• 2 oz serrano ham, diced small — DO NOT SKIP, see notes. Prosciutto is a fine substitute.
• 4 large red bell peppers (~700 g trimmed), stemmed, seeded, pith removed, cut into thin 1-inch strips
• 1 medium yellow onion (~150 g), diced
• 4 cloves garlic, sliced
• 28 oz canned whole tomatoes, crushed by hand — juice and all
• 2 tbsp cheap extra virgin olive oil, for browning
• 1 tbsp smoked paprika (pimentón de la Vera dulce)
• 1 tsp sherry vinegar, to taste at the end
• 1 tbsp good finishing olive oil (Arbequina), drizzled into the running blender
• Kosher salt — dry-brine the trimmed thighs at 1% of their weight (8 g for 790 g) at least an hour ahead, uncovered in the fridge. Then salt the SAUCE properly at the end; v1 came out under-salted because the brine was mistaken for enough.
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste at the end — v1 omitted it entirely and the sauce read flat
• OPTIONAL, if no ham: 1 tsp fish sauce stirred into the finished sauce — not traditional, but it fills the same umami gap
• TO SERVE, PER PORTION — ~220 g Yukon gold potatoes in 1.5-inch chunks, braised in the pot (that night's portion only), OR ~150 g cooked rice alongside (better for the rest of the batch)

Method

1. 1
   Preheat and prep everything first

   Set the oven to 325°F now. Then prep: skin the thighs, dice the ham, dice the onion, cut the peppers into thin strips, slice the garlic, and crush the tomatoes by hand into a bowl. Nothing goes on heat until all of this is done. Budget 25 minutes — this is the step people rush, and once you start browning there is no time to chop.

2. 2
   Brown the chicken

   Heat the 2 tbsp of cheap olive oil in the Dutch oven over medium-high on the stovetop until it shimmers. Brown the thighs in two batches, about 4 minutes per side. Go HARDER than feels necessary — with the skin off and no wine in this version, the fond is one of your few savory sources, so you want real color and real stuck-on bits. Do not crowd the pot. Set the browned thighs aside. Skinless thighs brown faster than skin-on, so watch rather than trusting the clock.

3. 3
   Render the ham, then cook down the peppers and onion — 25 MINUTES

   Drop to medium. Add the diced serrano and let it render 2 minutes in the fond. Add the onion and pepper strips, season with a pinch of salt, and cook 25 minutes, stirring and scraping the bottom. This takes FAR longer than most recipes claim — 700 g of pepper needs the full time for the pectin to break down. It will look like nothing is happening for twenty minutes and then collapse all at once: the strips go floppy, the volume drops by half, and the color deepens from bright red toward orange-red. Do not judge progress at the 15-minute mark. Taste a strip before moving on — it should read sweet, not green. Add the garlic for the last minute only.

4. 4
   Bloom the paprika

   Pull the pot OFF the heat. Add the smoked paprika and stir it into the hot oil and vegetables for about 20 seconds. Paprika is ground and full of sugars — it scorches in 5–10 seconds on direct heat and turns bitter, and there is no fixing it. Blooming it in fat is what unlocks the flavor, so do not skip it, just do it off the burner.

5. 5
   Braise in the oven — 45 minutes

   Back to medium heat. Add the crushed tomatoes and juice, nestle the chicken in with any resting juices, and bring to a simmer ON THE STOVETOP before it goes in the oven — going in cold costs 10–15 minutes of come-up time. Cover and transfer to the 325°F oven. At 15 minutes elapsed, add that night's potatoes, so they cook for the remaining 30. The oven surrounds the pot with even heat instead of driving it all through the bottom, so a sugary tomato-and-pepper sauce holds a gentle sub-boil with no scorching. Opening the lid mid-braise makes it look like the simmer died — it usually hasn't. STOVETOP FALLBACK: cover, hold at a bare bubble, stir occasionally, watch the bottom.

6. 6
   Reduce on the stovetop

   Lift the chicken and potatoes out into a bowl. Reduce the sauce uncovered over medium heat until it is noticeably thicker than a stew — it should mound slightly on a spoon rather than run off. Blending both thins (aeration, releasing bound water) and thickens (pepper solids into suspension), so the outcome is hard to predict; over-reducing is recoverable with a splash of stock, under-reducing is not.

7. 7
   Blend the sauce

   Pour the sauce into the Vitamix and blend until completely smooth — it pulverizes the pepper skins, which is why you never had to roast and peel them. With the blender running, drizzle in the finishing olive oil so it emulsifies. Add the sherry vinegar a little at a time and taste — it is 8% acidity, stronger than most vinegar.

8. 8
   Season properly, then finish

   SEASON THE SAUCE NOW, and take it seriously — this is where v1 fell short. Salt until it tastes like something, then grind in black pepper. A 1,100 g batch needs real salt; the dry brine on the chicken is not enough. If it still reads flat after salt and pepper and you skipped the ham, stir in a teaspoon of fish sauce. Then pull the chicken meat off the bones, discard the bones, return the meat and potatoes to the pot, pour the sauce over, and warm through 2 minutes.