Arroz con Pollo (Colombian Chicken and Rice)
Chicken cooked in a pressure cooker and shredded, rice cooked in the broth it left behind, and a hogao of tomato, onion and pepper stirred through at the end. Eight servings, an hour and ten.
Servings: 8
Calories: 370kcal
Ingredients
- 1000 g chicken breast
- 2 lbs rice
- 1 large carrot finely diced
- 1 cup peas
- ½ cup sweet corn
- 5 tomatoes finely chopped
- 1 onion finely chopped
- 2 scallion stalks
- 2 cloves garlic finely chopped
- 1 red bell pepper pimentón: the fresh vegetable, finely chopped
- 1 cup tomato sauce
- A pinch of oregano and cumin
- Salt and pepper
Instructions
- Cook the chicken breast in a pressure cooker with water, a pinch of oregano, cumin, salt and pepper, for 15 to 20 minutes.
- Take the chicken out, let it cool and shred it with your fingers or a fork. Keep the cooking water.
- Cook the rice in that same water, measuring out twice as much liquid as rice. Add the carrot and the peas with a little salt and cook over high heat until the liquid falls to the level of the rice.
- Turn the heat down and cover the pot until the rice is done.
- Meanwhile, make the hogao. In a pan, sauté the tomatoes, onion, scallion, garlic and bell pepper. When everything is soft, add the tomato sauce.
- Once the rice is ready, let it cool a little.
- In a large pot, put the rice, the sweet corn, the shredded chicken and the hogao, and stir until everything is evenly combined.
Notes
Twice as much liquid as rice, measured. The recipe says to cook the rice in the water the chicken came out of and never says how much, which with two pounds of rice is not a small omission. Measure the rice, measure out double that volume of broth, and top up with water if the pot did not give you enough. Everything comes together at the end rather than cooking together, and that is deliberate. Cooked separately, the rice stays loose and the vegetables keep their texture; cooked all in one pot they go soft and the grains stick. The recipe's own note says exactly this. The chicken water is the best thing in the dish. It has oregano, cumin, salt and pepper in it and it has had a kilo of chicken breast simmering in it, so it is a proper broth by the time the rice goes in. Let the rice cool a little before it meets the hogao, so the grains firm up and do not break when everything is stirred together.
Nutrition
Calories: 370kcal | Carbohydrates: 45g | Protein: 29g | Fat: 7g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 3g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 73mg | Sodium: 751mg | Potassium: 645mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 3g | Vitamin A: 1710IU | Vitamin C: 18mg | Calcium: 49mg | Iron: 2mg