My Mother’s Chicken and Rice
Mother frying plantains at Roxanne and David’s — Chicken and Rice screams out of for fried bananas!
My Mother loved to entertain. We would often, especially as we got older, joke about the people she would invite to her dinner parties, people who in our mind had nothing in common, and may not even speak the same language; but somehow it worked out well, I think because she always opened her home and heart with true and Godly love.
This was one of my Mother’s signature dishes – and it always came out well. I have seen her cook this for parties, small family gatherings, and friends, of varied backgrounds and palates, and everyone always loves this dish.
Ingredients:
6-10 Chicken Thighs or one whole Chicken cut into pieces
Sofrito:
3 tablespoons of Olive Oil
1 Onion diced
2 teaspoons of Garlic
1 small Bell Pepper diced
1 teaspoon of Oregano
1 small can of Tomato sauce or 2 fresh tomatoes chopped
Bay leaves a couple – add them to sofrito and remove when you add the rice
Green Olives – about ¼ cup
Wine ½ cup
2 cups of long grain Rice
Yellow Food Coloring
3 cups of Chicken Stock or Water
½ bottle of Beer – optional
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 cup of frozen Peas
Roasted Red Peppers pimentos for garnish
Raisins – 3 tablespoons – optional
Directions:
Wash the chicken, if using whole chicken, with kitchen sheers or a very sharp knife, cut the chicken into serving portions. This dish is enhanced by the flavor that boned chicken brings. Brown chicken in the olive oil, add all seasoning to the chicken, cooking for several minutes for flavors to meld, you can add the wine to the chicken, if it seems like you need more liquid in the sofrito. At this point, you may also add the raisins, if you so choose. As not everyone likes the raisins, they are optional.
After about ten minutes, pour rice into a glass bowl, and approximately, 1 ½ cups of liquid per 1 cup of rice. For the liquid you may use a combination of water, stock, beer, and wine, or just water. Add 2-3 drops of yellow food coloring to the liquid, you want a nice amber color, not sunshine yellow, but rather something more mellow. Add rice and liquid to the chicken; bring to a boil, cover, and lower heat. Taste the stock to make sure it is sufficiently salted, and correct other flavors, as you go along. You want light, fluffy rice.
Let it cook, tightly covered, until the liquid is all but absorbed, about 25 minutes. Taste, the rice should be all but tender. If needed, add a bit more liquid, and add the peas and pimentos, reserving half of the pimentos, to garnish before serving.
Beth eating with Mother — Beth is not eating Chicken with Rice, but she loves Mother’s Chicken and Rice
My Chicken and Rice
I make my chicken and rice a little bit different. The process is the same, but I add an extra teaspoon of oregano, and two teaspoons of cumin, my Mother does not like cumin, so she does not use it, in her chicken and rice. I also add about ¼ cup of fresh coriander to the sofrito.
Instead of chicken thighs, I tend to use boneless, skinless, chicken breast, which my Mother finds tasteless. I do compensate for their lack of taste, by adding a tablespoon of chicken stock base, like a bullion cube, to the chicken when I am browning it; and I use half chicken stock and half beer for the liquid needed in the rice. You can also garnish with blanched asparagus spears if you like.
I omit the raisins, though I actually think they are a good addition.
Mother cooking with Joy and Beth
