How to Cook Lechon Manok without an Oven

Okay, so I was a bit obsessed on finding out the English word equivalent of Filipino recipes and today, I learned that our own Lechon Manok is called Rotisserie Chicken in English.

Rotisserie is a style of roasting meat by skewering it on a steel rod and being cooked over the fire or roasted in an oven. 

Now for those who doesn't have an oven at home, there is actually a way to cook a whole chicken and make it taste ahh-mazing, just like our own famous Filipino dish...the Lechon Manok.

Step #1: Marination Process

I first marinated the chicken overnight. It's your choice what kind of spices you'd want to infuse the flavor in the chicken. For this recipe, I chose the following: soy sauce, vinegar, spanish paprika, salt, and pepper. 

I then placed  crushed garlic and chopped onions inside the chicken cavity. It is also important to place some of the marinade between the skin and chicken meat.

Step #2: Steaming Process

After being thoroughly marinated, you need to steam the chicken. In the steam, you need to put some parsley in order to infuse the aroma into the chicken.

Then, you have to put fresh spices inside the chicken cavity. I added 5 cloves of crushed garlic, onions cut into half, and thin slices of ginger. Most importantly, I put lemon grass inside the chicken cavity. 

Now I also used this lemon grass to tie the chicken legs, as shown above.  Steaming the takes about one hour. 

Step #3: Browning the Chicken

After steaming, you would want to make your chicken look brown. What you need to do is to fry the entire chicken.

Now you must be very careful in doing this. First, you take out the whole chicken from the steam and get the spices out. Leave it in a big bowl for a few minutes to let all the juices out.

Second, you need to make sure is a bit dry before you fry it. And so, what you need to is pat the surface of the chicken with a paper towel. 

Next, you need to put generous amount of oil in the wok and SLOWLY fry the chicken on all sides for about 1-2 minutes.

The Result?

This is the result of my attempt to cook and replicate the taste of a lechon manok without using an oven. As you can see above, the skin looks very yummy. 

The chicken is all brown and tastes really delicious because of the marinade infused in the chicken.  Also, the chicken meat turned out to be very, very soft because of the steaming process. 

And so, it is highly recommended that you try this cooking process to replicate the taste of the famous Filipino recipe without necessarily using an oven.

Let me know what you think.. good luck!