I've been craving a chicken and rice dish for a while now and since it wasn't going to prepare itself, I got in the kitchen and made it. I don't really enjoy going into a big production just for myself, but eventually, one gets tired of rye crackers and cheese.Don't let the length of the following recipe scare you. I go into a lot of detail here. It's really a very simple, everyday dish and easy to make.
Chicken and Rice Arroz con Pollo
Ingredients:
4-6 large chicken breasts or thighs or a combination - I prefer skinless, boneless breasts
1 large green or red bell pepper or both
optional: a couple of jalapeño peppers if you want a little spice
1 large yellow onion
1 big fat or 2 smaller carrots
a few fat cloves of garlic
1 28-oz can whole peeled tomatoes
1 16-oz bag of frozen peas
brown rice
salt
black pepper
turmeric
olive oil
Preparing the chicken:
1. Rinse the chicken pieces under cold water.
2. Dry the wet pieces of chicken on a stack of newspapers with a paper towel on top. This is a neat little trick that I came up with when I need to drain something on paper towels. Instead of using up a bunch of paper towels to soak up water or oil, use the newspapers to do the absorbing and only a paper towel on the top layer where the food touches. Always thinking... Anyway, pat dry the top side with another paper towel.
3. Sprinkle salt, pepper and turmeric on the top side of the chicken. I use turmeric quite a bit - in tomato sauces, soups, stews, stir fry, ratatouille, etc. I'm probably all yellow inside, but turmeric has some very good properties. Read more about turmeric here and here.
4. In a large stainless steel skillet, cover the bottom with olive oil and heat.
5. Add the pieces of chicken, the spiced side facing down.
6. Sprinkle salt, pepper and turmeric on the side facing up - the side that wasn't spiced before.
7. Let cook on medium heat. You'll know when it's time to turn the pieces over when they can be lifted from the pan without sticking too much to the bottom. Tongs work nicely for this.
Preparing the veggies:
While the chicken is browning:
1. Cut the peppers in half, lengthwise, remove the seeds and ribs (the white part), cut into thin strips, about 1/4 inch.
2. Do the same with the jalapeños. Be careful how you handle those. You might even want to wear gloves. That stuff gets on your hands and you could hurt yourself or someone else if you touch them afterwards. That oil does not wash off easily. I've done this and then went and put my contacts in my eyes. OWWWW!!!! This is not a traditional ingredient. We don't even have jalapeños in Argentina. I added it myself because I like spicy food and it's good for your metabolism. Again, always thinking...
3. Chop the onion into about 1/2 inch pieces.
4. Peel and grate the entire carrot. You'll never notice it in the finished dish.
5. Coarsely chop a couple of cloves of garlic. The best way to chop garlic is to put the cloves on the chopping board with the peel still on them. Lay the flat part of your knife's blade on top of the clove, then with the base of the palm of your other hand, give it a good whack to flatten the clove underneath. The peel will separate from the garlic and you can pull it off with ease. Boom, boom, flatten and peel your cloves. Now, the smashed garlic cloves are much easier to chop up than if you started with intact, peeled cloves.
Sautéing the veggies:
1. In a 6-quart stainless steel pot, cover the bottom with olive oil and heat until a haze forms over it.
2. Dump in all the vegetables, except the garlic.
3. Stir up, to coat the veggies with the oil.
4. Sprinkle salt, pepper and turmeric over the veggies
5. They should be sizzling nicely.
6. Stir a bit.
Putting it all together:
1. The chicken pieces should have already been turned over and nicely browned on both sides by now. Cut the large pieces, the breasts, in half and add to the sautéing veggies. It's okay if they're still slightly pink in the center.
2. After you transfer all the chicken to the veggies, stir a bit and let it continue to sauté.
3. Add the chopped garlic to the pot now. Stir around.
4. The chicken pan should have some nice brown bits on the bottom. This is why you want a stainless steel pan and not a teflon pan. Add about a cup of water to the pan and heat it up, scraping all those brown bits loose with a wooden spatula. You'll have a nice gravey-colored liquid. There's a lot of flavor there.
5. Add that liquid to the chicken and veggies. Stir and continue to sauté. You're almost done now.
6. Dump the entire can of tomatoes in a blender and puree them quickly, enough that all the tomatoes are liquified and no big solid pieces remain.
7. Pour it all into the chicken and veggies.
8. Add water, both into the tomato can and blender, swish around to get all the remaining tomato juice from each. Dump into the pot.
9. Thinly slice another couple of cloves of garlic. Add to the pot. Stir.
10. Sprinkle some more salt and turmeric in there. Turmeric is a natural thickener. Some idiot on a cooking show was marveling how adding yellow mustard to a sauce magically worked as a thickener. He didn't have a clue that it was the turmeric in the mustard that was doing it. Geesh.
11. Bring to a boil. This won't take long at all.
12. Now, stir in the brown rice. I eyeball it. As a general rule, it's two parts liquid to one part rice. So, keep a tally of how much liquid you've added to this whole thing, including the tomato juice, but you don't want the finished product to be dry like plain rice - you want it a little saucy, so use less than half the amount of liquid. If you need a measure, use the empty can of tomatoes. Fill it about 3/4 full of rice. Considering the added water and the tomato juice, that should be about right. You'd rather have too little rice than too much or there won't be enough liquid to cook it.
13. Bring to a boil. Won't take long. Cover. Turn heat all the way down. Let it cook for thirty minutes. Don't touch it or lift lid at all.
14. While waiting for the rice to cook, take the peas out of the freezer, dump into a colander, run cold water over them to defrost them a bit, then let them sit there.
15. After thirty minutes, you stir in all the peas. Check a couple of grains of rice to see that it's cooked to your liking. Cover and turn up the heat a little. Cook about 5 minutes or more, depending on how soft you like your rice. Turn off heat and let sit, covered, for about 10 minutes.
That's it. It's really a very easy dish to prepare. Nothing fancy, but very tasty, healthy and homemade, with no prepackaged junk or chemicals.
And if it seems too liquidy, don't worry, the liquid will be absorbed by the rice after sitting a while. Serve it up anyway. And it's one of those dishes that's even better reheated the next day for leftovers, after sitting in the fridge overnight.
White rice is traditionally used in this dish, but I don't touch the stuff. It's not good for you. Brown rice, on the other hand, is very good for you, so stick with that.
I've just finished eating a big chunk of my very first watermelon of the year - the first of many that will be devoured throughout the long, hot summer days ahead. Ah, what a delight is this cold, crispy, juicy, sweet fruit. 
