Achiote-Marinated Chicken Wrapped in Banana Leaves

This is a superb and exotic (at least for this Canadian) way to prepare chicken on the grill, and makes for great presentation for a party as well as a delicious meal anytime.

You marinate chicken breasts in an achiote marinade, made up of annato seeds, garlic, cumin, oregano, vinegar and orange juice among other things (including a tablespoon of black pepper). Then wrap them in banana leaves with some red onion and chopped tomato. 25 minutes or so on a hot grill and you have this delightful charred package to unwrap - inside is an incredibly tender and juicy chicken breast, perfectly cooked.

It's a little work to source annato seeds and banana leaves, but once you have them you can do this multiple times as the seeds keep and the leaves freeze very well.

The flavour is distinctive, not overpowering, and a little exotic. Very nice indeed, and my favourite recipe so far from this book.

A lovely flavor, albeit a bit too salty for me.

Chicken is marinated in an achiote (annato seeds)-cumin-orange juice-vinegar-oregano mixture. We substituted boneless thighs for breasts, and marinated for about 10 hours.

My husband did a superb job of wrapping with the banana leaves and grilling. Be sure to use a sweet onion (I used white onion - not so good).

Also avoid getting the excess salt on the chicken as you wrap it. Some bites were too salty.

I agree with Andrew - these would be spectacular for a party. We found the banana leaves and aciote (annato seeds) in a local hispanic market.

If you click through the pictures, you will see the packets pre-cooked and after cooking. So pretty!