Arroz con Pollo/Chicken and Rice Recipe
Preparation Time: 60 minutes
Cooking Difficulty: Medium
Introduction:
Welcome to another segment of our cooking blog! Since the last blog post two weeks ago (Summer Breeze Salad), we here at SchnellerCo have been hard at work experimenting in the kitchen to bring a tasty new dish-- Arroz con Pollo! Arroz con Pollo, or chicken and rice, is a traditional Latin American dish served all over the Caribbean, South and Central America, and Mexico. This particular dish is an old family recipe. While there are many different variations of Arroz con Pollo, this is the one I grew up on and my favorite version.
Background:
This dish has been edited and re-created in my family for generations; this exact version can be traced back to my mother. She changed up a few ingredients from her mother. She grew up in Maracay, Venezuela, where this dish was as typical as barbecue in Texas, as famous as gumbo in Louisiana, and as tasty as tapas in Spain.
Health Benefits:
Arroz con Pollo offers many vegetables in the marinade and is a very healthy dish. It has four of the six major food groups: oil, grains, vegetables, and protein (read more on the food groups here). Along with being heart-healthy and delicious, it’s perfect for a sensitive stomach. It has very few inflammatory ingredients like tomatoes, high fructose corn syrup, large quantities of fats, and processed foods.
Cleaning Up:
When cleaning up, remember to clean your cutting board properly, so it can stay looking as gorgeous as the day you bought it forever. If it’s been a while since you’ve had to clean it, here’s our blog post detailing how to properly clean written by the man behind the cutting boards himself, Jay Schneller.
What You’ll Need:
Blender
One medium-sized bowl
One large-sized pot
SchnellerCo cutting board
Ingredients: Serves 4
2 tbsp chicken broth
1 tbsp orange juice
¼ large onion
¼ yellow bell pepper (red bell pepper works, too)
¼ cup of leeks
½ tsp minced garlic (1 diced clove)
Salt & pepper to taste
2 lbs chicken breast
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 cup uncooked white rice
2 cups chicken broth (yes, more broth)
⅔ cups sweet canned corn
Directions:
Click through the slideshow to see the progression of the meal!
First, chop the onion, bell pepper, leek, and garlic clove (if not canned) into chunks-- don’t worry about getting them too small, medium-sized pieces will be best.
Then, place the chopped onion, bell pepper, leek, and garlic in the blender along with the 2 tbsps of chicken broth, orange juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Blend until liquid. It should be green, but don’t be alarmed by the color; it will still be delicious!
Chop the chicken into chunks. In your bowl, mix chicken and marinade and cover as much of the chicken as possible in the marinade.
Heat your pot, put the olive oil in, and add the contents of the bowl-- cooking the chicken on medium heat for 2-3 minutes, or until all the pink has gone away. Add the butter in the pot halfway through cooking the chicken.
Once the chicken is cooked, add the rice to the pot. Add the 2 cups of chicken broth to the pot and cook the rice on medium heat for the time indicated on the rice packaging (usually 10-15 minutes). Stir occasionally.
Once the rice is cooked, let it sit for 2-4 minutes, to make sure all the chicken broth is gone. Then add the sweet corn to the pot and stir. Serve and enjoy!
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