The Rice Bowl · Main
Arroz con Pollo
- Intermediate
- 30 min
- roughly 4 of 4 for cost
Leads with a briny, maritime salinity, ferment tang with real depth behind it, leaving a faint perfume.
Ingredients
- 1.2 kg chicken thighs and drumsticks, bone in and skin on
- 400 g long grain rice
- 700 ml hot chicken stock
- 120 ml dry white wine
- 150 g onion, minced
- 100 g green pepper, minced
- 20 g garlic, minced
- 200 g tomato, grated to a pulp
- 60 ml olive oil
- 4 g dried oregano
- 2 bay leaves
- 3 g ground annatto, or 0.2 g saffron
- 80 g green olives, with 30 ml of their brine
- 120 g peas
- 12 g salt
Equipment
Grater / zester
The skills inside
Allergen screen
Found: alcohol
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Salt the chicken and brown it skin down in the oil in a wide heavy pot until the skin lets go of the pan by itself and is deep brown, about 8 minutes, then 2 minutes on the other side. Lift it out. 8 min
- Cook the onion, pepper and garlic in the same fat over medium until translucent and sweet smelling, then add the tomato, oregano, bay and annatto and cook until the mixture darkens and the oil runs orange around the edge.
- Stir in the rice and turn it in the fat for 2 minutes until every grain is coated and the edges go slightly translucent, then pour in the wine and let it boil away. 2 min
- Add the hot stock, the olives and their brine and taste: it should be a shade saltier than you want. Settle the chicken back on top, bring it to a boil, cover, and cook on the lowest heat 18 to 20 minutes without lifting the lid. 20 min
- Scatter the peas over, put the lid back and leave the pot off the heat for 10 minutes, then fork the rice up from the edges. 10 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Brining & curing 88 recipes
- Fully committed either way: in a wet brine nothing floats clear of the liquid, and in a dry cure every face carries salt, seams and cavities included.
- The time was measured against the weight and the thickness rather than the recipe’s convenience, and it stayed cold for all of it.
- The change is visible and can be felt: the flesh is firmer than raw and its colour has deepened or gone more translucent, rather than still being slack and pale.
- Rinsed and dried as the recipe asks, and anything meant to crisp afterwards has a surface dry and tacky to the touch before it goes near heat.
- Cooked and tasted, it is seasoned right through to the centre rather than merely salty at the surface, and not so salty that the dish cannot be eaten.
Where it goes wrong It sat in the brine well past its time because a few extra hours seemed harmless; the surface is over-salted and the texture has gone from firm to spongy and wet, and no cooking takes salt back out.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Pinot Noir or Gamay
- Also Right
- Chianti or Barbera
- From the Taps
- Bière de garde
- Zero-Proof
- Verbena iced tea
Chicken is wine’s most agreeable partner. Match the SAUCE, not the bird: cream to oak, tomato to Sangiovese’s acid, herbs to Loire whites.
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