arroz con pollo

arroz con pollo. i picked up on sale a whole chicken at whole foods and wanted a tummy warming one pot meal. i also wanted to use ingredients i had in the house. looking online, i morphed a couple of recipes into this one super recipe. leg quarters take longer to cook than breast/wing pieces, so add the dark meat to the pot & cook for 15 minutes then add the white meat. this keeps the white meat from overcooking and drying out. cooking the rice separately keeps it from turning to mush. this may seem like a lot of steps, but, i divided it into two parts. i began the recipe in the late morning & put it on hold after the leg quarters cooked for 15 minutes. closer to dinner time, i picked up where i left off and added the white meat & then started the rice. don’t get weird using the leftover marinade in the rice - it’s safe, boiling any marinade that raw meat has been in for 1 minute kills anything beastly. delicioso doesn’t capture how good this arroz con pollo is. try it. here’s how;

1 chicken (3 ½ to 4 pounds), remove backbone & cut into 4 pieces

4 cloves garlic, pressed
2 onions, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
Juice of 2 limes
1 serrano or jalapeño pepper, cored, seeded, and chopped

2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 can (28 ounces) whole peeled tomatoes, juice reserved, tomatoes crushed by hand
1 jar of capers, 4 oz, drained

1. cut chicken into 4 quarters & salt chicken pieces.
2. in a large bowl, make marinade with garlic, onions, celery, lime juice, chili pepper, oregano, and salt. stir marinade & place chicken pieces into bowl. cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes. (i left my bowl on the counter)
3. in a large skillet, heat the oil. when it shimmers, add the sugar. when the sugar melts - watch it carefully so it does not burn - use tongs to lift the chicken from the marinade (leave the vegetables in the bowl). brown the chicken well on all sides; remove from the pan to a clean dish or bowl.
4. spoon vegetables out of marinade with a slotted spoon, reserve the marinade and set aside. add the vegetables from the marinade to the skillet. continue cooking, stirring often, for 5 minutes. add the hand crushed tomatoes and return the leg quarters of chicken to the pan. Cover and simmer for leg quarters for 15 minutes, then, add breasts quarters and cook for another 35 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. it's done when you can move the leg/wing joints freely. if it's tight, keep cooking.
   

while chicken cooks, make the rice.
 

RICE

3 cups liquid - use reserve tomato juice, leftover marinade & top off with chicken stock
1 teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups long-grain white rice

1. In a large flameproof casserole (large enough to hold the chicken later), add 1 tablespoon oil & 1 tablespoon butter, sauté dry uncooked rice until fragrant and slightly browned. add 3 cups liquid and salt and bring to a boil. stir well, when the mixture returns to a boil, turn the heat down, cover, and simmer without stirring for 16 minutes or until the rice absorbs the water and the grains are tender.
2. add the capers, chicken and cooking liquid to the rice. Cover the pan and simmer over low heat for 5 minutes.

note: to prepare the dish in advance, cook the chicken and rice separately. reheat them together in the same pot until hot throughout. recipe adapted from the boston globe.