Rice Dishes and a Side Dish

Here are our recipes for Paella . Chicken with Rice (South American) . Tostones

Paella

serves 2 hogs

Ingredients

Preparation

1. Drop saffron threads into stock pot. (Use good quality saffron - Spanish is best. The cheapest in Toronto is available at Indian food stores - we pay $16.00 -$18.00 for a little box the size of a audio cassette container - expensive yes, but it lasts for ages.) Set stock aside for later.
2. Heat oil in a large skillet that can go into the oven as well. Add chicken and saute til brown. Remove chicken; set aside for later.
3. Saute onion and garlic til slightly caramelized.
4. Cut sausage and ham into bite size pieces. Put ham and sausage in with onions and stir around. Add salt and pepper and stir around a little more.
5. Add rice and stir to coat with oil. (A note about the rice: we use long grain rice because we prefer that our paella isn't soupy. Many paellas call for short grain arborio rice.)
6. Add saffroned chicken stock (stock recipe) to skillet. Boil on stove 5 to 10 minutes. Place chicken on top of rice and cover skillet and put in 350F oven 20 minutes. (Traditionally, paella pans are not covered but we like to. We use a large pizza pan inverted.)
7. Add peas and shrimp (and any other seafood you want- cut seafood into smallish pieces) to skillet, cover, and cook about 3 minutes in oven. (This is if you really care about seafood and peas being cooked perfectly - we do! If you don't care, put all the stuff in at the same time as the chicken.)
8. Take pan out of oven. Leave covered for 10 minutes before serving. Garnish with lemon and a bit of lemon thyme if you have it.

Serve with a dry champagne type wine.

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Arroz con Pollo
South American chicken & rice dish

Ingredients

Preparation

1. Put olive oil in small pan and add the achiote seeds (aka annatto, lipstick plant). Keep at medium heat until bubbles form, then remove from heat and let sit. Drain achiote seeds from oil (the oil should now be quite orange). Discard seeds.
2. Place oil in large stockpot. Brown chicken pieces in hot oil (high) - this is done just to brown chicken NOT to cook it. Remove chicken from pot.
3. Add onions and garlic to pot. Saute until soft (watch that the garlic doesn't burn).
4. Put peppers and capers in pot and stir to cover with oil.
5. Add rice and swirl into the mixture. Let the rice cook about one minute.
6. Add chicken broth (stock recipe); make sure you scrape the pot.
7. Put chicken pieces back in. Add olives and mix.
8. Check for seasonings (NB: add salt and pepper at the end). Let the mixture cook on medium heat until the rice is done.
9. Add peas just before serving. Garnish with cilantro, basil and tostones. Roasted sweet potatoes are good too if you can't get plantain.

* Becke (Columbus Foodie) made this for Taste&Create IX in May 2008 and added "a touch of ground cloves". Please note that our chicken stock always has cloves in it. If you are using commercial chicken stock, please be sure to add a touch of ground cloves at the same time as the garlic.

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about achiote seed (Epicurious)
about achiote seed (Horticulture and Landscape Architecture|Purdue University)
Lipstick Tree, Annato, Achiote, Urucu (GreenDealer Exotic Seeds)
Annatto Seed (Richters')

Tostones (fried plantain)

Ingredients

Preparation

1. Peel plantains (get firm yellow ones with a hint of green) and cut in thick coins at an angle.
2. Heat oil in a large frying pan, then fry plantains until somewhat soft (til light gold).
3. Take them out of the pan and with a rolling pin, smash each one between 2 pieces of paper towels. Return flattened plantain pieces to frying pan (you may have to add more oil). Fry until crisp and then season with salt.

Serve with chicken and rice.

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ejm (aka llizard) 2001, 2002
Toronto Ontario Canada