Arroz Con Pollo

One of our FAVORITE meals is arroz con pollo. It's a dish I've been making since before I had my own kitchen. And I don't know why, but it's been a long time since I last made it. It's an indulgent dish, that's for sure. I mean, it's not exactly healthy to eat a big whoopass bowl of white rice for dinner, is it? Yeah, I didn't think so. Anyway, I guess it's a good thing I haven't made it in a while. But when I do make it, I have to make a big freaking pot of it, and sometimes there's not even enough for me to bring for lunch the next today. Like tonight - my mom stopped by and she took some home with her. Hubs had 2 bowls, I had one. All that's really left is the crispy rice from the bottom of the pot. Oh well. Trying to watch my weight I guess it's for the best.

Anyway, to make this dish, it's mostly done by tasting. My friend Marisol who I used to work with but has since moved to Florida (sniff) taught me how to make it, but when she taught me, it didn't include the chicken, and was really just Spanish Rice. Well, hubs and I decided we needed some more substance in the dish and one day I decided to add chicken to it, hence the name, arroz con pollo. And Lord knows there are probably a million and one different varieties of arroz con pollo, but this is the way we like it.

ARROZ CON POLLO

Source: me with Marisol's help

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced

oil

2 packets Goya Sazon

3 1/2 cups water

about 1/2 cup Goya Sofrito, or more to taste (1/4 - 1/2 of the jar)

1 Tbsp kosher salt (or to taste)

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

2 tsp garlic powder (or more to taste)

3 cups long grain rice

diced jalepeno to taste - for spicy, I add about 2 heaping spoonfuls (we used Cento jarred diced green jalepenos)

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1. Heat oil in large nonstick pot. Add diced chicken and cook over medium heat until cooked through.

2. Open 1 packet of Sazon and sprinkle half of the packet over the chicken. Stir to coat.

3. Add water, the rest of the 2 packets of sazon, the sofrito, salt, pepper and garlic powder and stir. This is when you start tasting. You're aming for a salty, garlicky seasoned taste. I added 1 Tbsp of kosher flake salt and felt it needed some more. If you undersalt, you can always add salt to your individual serving when it's done. This works for us because hubs doesn't like too much salt on his food.

4. Once you have a nicely seasoned pot of water, add in your rice and jalepenos and stir. I like to also add in an extra few teaspoons of oil to keep the rice from sticking together. Keep stirring over medium-low heat until about 1/2 of the water is absorbed.

5. Cover and set the heat to low.

6. Stir every 5 minutes and re-cover - but here's the tricky part - after all of the water is absorbed, the rice in the bottom of the pot will begin to get crispy. You want to avoid stirring the crispy rice into the rest of the rice. Unless, of course, you like crispy rice. So when you stir, do so gently when reaching to the bottom of the pot.

7. After about 20-30 minutes, your rice should be steamed perfectly - once you get to 20 minutes, just start tasting it to check for doneness.

Hopefully someone will be interested and daring enough after reading all of my crazy directions to give this a try and end up loving the dish like we do :)