Arroz con pollo
I got married young, way too young. The marriage did not last but many of the things my mother in law taught me did stick around. She was Colombian and while she did not create complex meals, she created things that were simple but infused with her Latin culture. One of the things she taught me was a simple arroz con pollo (chicken with rice) recipe. While I have heavily modified it over the years, it continues to be a favorite. This one is the best version so far and I encourage you to try it.
You are going to first marinade your chicken for 2 hours. I used four leg quarters for this, dark meat does work better with this dish and is more traditional but if you like the white meat, go for it. I also took 80% of the skin off but again, it’s a preference thing on that~
Add the chicken to a large zip lock bag and add the following:
the juice of one orange (you can use 1/4 cup orange juice if you want)
the juice of one lime
the juice of one small lemon
4 cloves of crushed garlic
1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
1 teaspoon salt
Squeeze out as much air as you can and put in the fridge for 2 hours, flipping once after an hour.
Heat up a dutch oven with 2 tablespoons oil and 1 tablespoon butter and brown the chicken on both sides. You only need to cook it about 3/4 of the way through. Once the chicken is nice and brown, put it aside. To the pan with the drippings, add the
2 diced small to medium sweet onions
1 diced small red pepper
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads
1/2 teaspoon Goya all purpose seasoning
2 Tablespoon white wine vinegar
Saute until they begin to soften. Then add the following
The remaining marinade from the chicken
1 can beer (we used a light hops but you can use anything)
1 1/2 cup organic chicken broth
1 cup of your favorite tomato marinara or plain tomato sauce
Let simmer for at least 5 minutes, uncovered.
At this point you are going to add the following:
2 cups rice
1/4 cup sliced green olives
1/3 cup diced roasted red pepper.
1 Tablespoon mustard
Give everything a good mix and add the chicken back in the pot. Bring back to a boil , reduce to low and cover. Let sit for at least 20 minutes. Do not lift the cover. You are done. Eat up!
Some personal notes:
You need to marinade the chicken for at least 2 hours but you can certainly prepare this the day before and leave overnight.
I used beer in this recipe and when I was browning the chicken I had already opened the beer and would use a little to the pan while they were cooking.
I prefer using some sort of canned tomato here because you get a good amount of juice with it, which is important so if you don’t want to use a sauce, just get a can of diced tomatoes, it will work just as good.
The same goes with the roasted red pepper, they are great from a jar for this recipe.
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What kind of mustard? Dry mustard powder? Plain yellow mustard like French’s?
And, do you think the flavor would be much affected if I substituted frozen peas for the olives? I ask because my husband doesn’t care for green olives, but this looks great to me and I think he would like the dish without the olives. I was thinking if it didn’t make a big difference to the flavor of the dish I could use peas for color (or nothing at all) and serve the olives as a condiment for everyone else.
Actually, I love peas in this recipe, but I keep them out for my son. It will work wonderful. As for the mustard, I use plane jane yellow mustard. You can probably get creative, however just don’t use the dry mustard, it won’t come out the same.
Cool. May try this for Monday night’s dinner, then. Thanks.