Mama’s Puerto Rican Chicken

Elijah Mitchell was born on Wednesday, June 17th, 2020, at 4:23 AM, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, weighing 7 pounds, 11 ounces, 20 inches long, with lungs that announced his arrival to every nurse on the floor and a grip that closed around my finger before his eyes opened. ELIJAH. The name appeared the moment I saw him. The moment the doctor placed him on my chest — warm, wet, wailing, furious at being evicted from the only home he'd ever known — I looked at his face and the name was there. Elijah. The prophet. The one who was carried to heaven in a chariot of fire. Jayden's going to LOVE that — a brother named for fire.

The labor started Tuesday afternoon. Contractions at 3 PM — real ones, not Braxton Hicks, not practice. The real thing is unmistakable. The real thing is your body saying: THIS IS NOT A DRILL. I called Terrence at 3:07 PM. He was in his car by 3:12 PM. Seven hours. He drove seven hours while I labored, while Mama took the kids (she broke quarantine for this — she came to my apartment, masked, gloved, and said, "Give me those babies and GO"), while the contractions got closer and stronger and more insistent.

Terrence arrived at the hospital at 10:30 PM. He ran from the parking lot. He was in the room by 10:35. He was in scrubs and a mask by 10:40. He held my hand by 10:41. The room was strange — masks everywhere, plastic shields, the sterile protocol of a pandemic delivery. The nurse held my other hand because Mama was in the parking lot (in the car, windows down, phone on speaker, listening to me breathe through the phone because that's how Lorraine Mitchell attends a birth when the hospital says one person only — she attends it through a phone, through a parking lot, through sheer force of will).

4:23 AM. Elijah. The cry. The sound that changes everything — every time, every baby, the cry rewires the room. Terrence cut the cord. His hands were shaking. He looked at Elijah and he said — through a mask, through tears, through the surreal fog of a 2020 delivery room — "Hey, baby. It's your dad. I drove really fast to be here." I drove really fast to be here. The most Terrence sentence ever spoken. The man drove seven hours to be here and his first words to his son were about the drive. Because the drive was the love. The drive was the showing up. The drive was Terrence.

Mama heard the cry through the phone. She was in the parking lot, 3 AM, windows down, and she heard her grandson cry for the first time through a cell phone speaker and she said — I heard it, faintly, through my phone on the bed — she said: "There he is. There's my baby." There he is. The newest Mitchell. Elijah. Born during a pandemic, during protests, during the strangest year any of us have ever lived. Born anyway. Born despite everything. Born because Mitchells don't wait for the world to be ready. We just arrive.

I didn't cook this week. I held my son. I fed him. I watched him sleep in the yellow blanket Lorraine knitted, wrapped in the green blanket Gloria sent, lying in the crib Terrence assembled, in the room where Chloe practiced baby-holding and Jayden built a fire station out of cardboard. Every object in this room is an act of love from someone who couldn't be here but was here anyway — in blankets, in cribs, in cardboard, in the orange heart in a wallet, in the fire helmet on a nightstand, in all of it. Elijah Mitchell, you are so loved. You have been loved since before you were a person. You were loved when you were a line on a test and a flutter in a belly and a kick through a phone and a name on a card and a mystery in an envelope. You were loved the whole time. Welcome home.

I didn’t cook this week — not a single thing — and I don’t feel one bit of guilt about it. But if Mama had been inside that apartment instead of masked in the parking lot listening to her grandson cry through a cell phone speaker, this is exactly what she would have made: her Puerto Rican chicken, low and slow, filling every corner of the room with something warm and unmistakably hers. It’s the meal that shows up when words aren’t enough, when the only thing left to do is feed the people you love. Elijah, this one’s for you — and for the Mama who was there the whole time, even when she couldn’t be inside.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 45 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour | Servings: 6

Ingredients

3 lbs bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces (thighs and drumsticks)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp sofrito (store-bought or homemade)
1 packet sazón seasoning with culantro and achiote
1 1/2 tsp adobo all-purpose seasoning
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1/3 cup pimento-stuffed green olives, sliced
1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 tbsp capers (optional)
Salt and black pepper to taste
Fresh cilantro, chopped, for garnish
Cooked white rice, for serving

Instructions

Season the chicken. Pat chicken pieces dry with paper towels. Season all over with adobo, garlic powder, oregano, salt, and black pepper. Let rest at room temperature for 10 minutes while you prepare the other ingredients.
Brown the chicken. Heat olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Working in batches if needed, add chicken pieces skin-side down and brown for 4—5 minutes per side until deep golden. Transfer to a plate and set aside. Do not discard the drippings.
Build the sauce. Reduce heat to medium. Add sofrito to the pot and cook, stirring, for 1—2 minutes until fragrant. Stir in the sazón packet and cook for 30 seconds. Add tomato sauce and chicken broth, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot.
Braise the chicken. Return the chicken to the pot, nestling the pieces into the sauce. Scatter olives and capers (if using) over the top. Bring to a gentle boil, then reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for 30—35 minutes, until chicken is cooked through and tender and the sauce has thickened slightly.
Taste and finish. Taste the sauce and adjust salt and pepper as needed. Remove from heat and let rest, covered, for 5 minutes. Garnish generously with fresh cilantro.
Serve. Spoon chicken and plenty of sauce over white rice. Set it on the table. Let the people you love eat.

Nutrition (per serving)

Mama’s Puerto Rican Chicken — The Meal That Held Us While I Held Him