Chicken pieces simmered in eight cups of water with carrot, garlic and green onion, then rice and potato added for the second half. An hour, six bowls, and half a cup of rice is all it takes.
Half a cup of rice
The proportion looks wrong on paper. Eight cups of water and half a cup of rice, for six people.
It is right. Rice absorbs several times its volume, and it does not stop when the heat goes off: a soup ladled out at the correct consistency will have thickened noticeably by the time the second bowl is served, and a great deal more by tomorrow.
Colombian sopa de arroz is a broth with rice in it, not a rice dish with liquid. If you want more body, add potato rather than rice.
Two stages, not one
The chicken gets twenty-five minutes on its own with the carrot, green onion and garlic, and only then do the rice and potato go in for another twenty-five.
The reason is that they need different times. Chicken on the bone wants the longer stretch to give up its flavour to the water; rice and potato in the pot for fifty minutes disintegrate.
The peas belong in the second stage too, which is where they now are. They used to go in at the start.
Cilantro at the end
It goes on the bowl, not in the pot.
Cilantro is volatile: what it has is mostly aroma, and aroma leaves in the first few minutes of boiling. Fifty minutes of simmering leaves a grey herb and a soup that tastes of nothing in particular.
The same is true of the green onion tops, if you want to keep some back.
What it is for
This is a weeknight soup and a convalescent soup, the thing that gets made when nobody has decided what lunch is.
Six chicken pieces, two potatoes, half a cup of rice and whatever vegetables are in the drawer. Ten minutes of chopping and then the pot does the rest, which is exactly what the original description promised even when the recipe itself did not deliver it.
More soups
- Chicken vegetable soup — no rice.
- Sopa de coditos — pasta instead.
- Sopa de albóndigas — with potato and pasta.
- Colombian white rice — on the side.
Chicken and Rice Soup FAQ
Yes, and it is deliberate. Rice keeps swelling after the pot comes off the heat, so a soup that looks correct on the stove turns into porridge by the time it reaches the table. Half a cup is right.
With the rice and potatoes, at the halfway point. The recipe used to put them in at the start, which gave them fifty minutes and turned them to mush.
Yes. Seven minutes for the first stage with the chicken, then ten more once the rice and potatoes go in.
Anything on the bone. The bone is what gives the broth body, which matters in a soup with this few ingredients.
Because boiling destroys it. Fifty minutes in the pot and it contributes nothing but a grey colour; scattered on the bowl it does what it is there for.
It thickens overnight as the rice carries on absorbing. Add a cup of water when reheating and it comes back.
📖 Recipe
Ingredients
- 6 chicken pieces (on the bone gives a better broth)
- ½ cup rice
- 2 potatoes
- 1 or 2 garlic cloves
- ½ cup carrot
- 1 green onion stalk
- 8 cups water
- ½ cup peas
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Cilantro (to finish)
Notas
- For a quicker version, use a pressure cooker: the first stage with the chicken takes only 7 minutes, and 10 more once the rice goes in.
- Half a cup of rice in eight cups of water is deliberate. Rice keeps swelling after the pot comes off the heat, and more than this turns the soup into a porridge by the time it reaches the table.
- The cilantro goes on at the end, not in the pot. Boiled for fifty minutes it loses everything it was there for.
Instructions
- Wash the potatoes, carrot, green onion and garlic thoroughly.
- Slice the potato, and dice or finely chop the carrot, green onion and garlic.
- In a pot, put the water with the chicken, carrot, green onion and garlic. The rice, potato, peas and cilantro stay out for now.
- Cook for about 25 minutes, until the chicken is nearly done.
- Add the rice, the potatoes and the peas, and carry on cooking for another 25 minutes. The peas go in here rather than at the start, because fifty minutes turns them to mush.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Serve hot with fresh cilantro on top.
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