The kitchen manager was with me in line. We were behind at least 100 others and settled in for a long wait.
I like to get to know people so I began my usual questioning. My
most frequent go-to question is "Where did you grow up?"
"Mexico" was the answer. And I wanted to know how old he was when he
came to the USA. "Age 20" was the next answer.
Eventually, as the line very slowly crawled along, I found myself asking
him if his mom cooked alot..."Yes". And she was a good teacher.
She was and is always cooking food grown on the family farm in Mexico.
"And how do you fix beans?"... This took up a lot of the time and how fun to be learning about cooking authentic Mexican food.
Hopefully a future post will be about trying out what I learned. I do
wish I had something to write it down, but I am fairly sure I can get a
refresher at some point.
Hungry for more learning, I asked about Mexican Rice. I mistakenly
called it Spanish rice.
And again, I can't remember everything he said, but today I gave it a go with
my own twists and turns...because I wanted to use home made chicken bone broth
rather than canned chicken broth.
Aaaaaannnnnddddd my son recently gave me a sous vide. Really!!!
So the 6 chicken thighs were in the fridge, thanks to my husband who does all
the shopping for our household.
I vacuum packed them and put them in the water and using the sous vide at 165
degrees for 1.5 hours they were done just right. And here is an
additional benefit...we left the house with 55 minutes to go on the timer
knowing we would not be back in time for it to be done cooking. We got
home a couple hours later and all was well.
From these 6 chicken thighs, there was one cup of this liquid and I wanted that for the Mexican rice recipe. The recipe calls for
4 cups broth and to get the other three cups needed, I trimmed the cooked chicken off the bones and put those chicken bones in a
pan with 6 cups water and gently boiled them for a couple hours That was about setting number 6 out of 10 on my stove.
Also, it was supper time so I wanted to eat a piece of this chicken which by this time was medium warm. And I wanted to crisp the outside.
With some butter in the pan, I fried the chicken for about 10 minutes on a medium heat. There was more liquid in the pan now and some crispy
bits. Which seemed like a great starting point for the rice recipe if you ask me.
Add a 1/2 cube butter to the chicken drippings. Now take a large white onion and cut off some. Finely chop it. I did about 1/4 cup and more would have been fine. Saute in the butter and drippings for about 3 to 5 minutes.
Using the
morter and pestal, I smashed about 10 small garlic cloves and put them in the chicken fat, butter and onions. Saute 🧄 a minute or so, stirring.
Add 2 cups white Niko Niko Calrose Rice. Saute until some (half?) are golden. Add one cup collogen and 3 cups bone broth along with 1/2 teaspoon sea salt.
Now add 2 scant tablespoons of tomato paste and whisk it in to blend with all the other ingredients.
Cover the pan and when the lid is hot, turn the heat to a lower setting. I cook it for 20 minutes at a low heat. That is a 3 on my electric stove.
Ingredient list:
Chicken drippings from finish browning 6 thighs (already Sous Vide cooked).
1/2 cube butter
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
10 small garlic cloves smashed
2 cups Niko Niko Calrose Rice
1 cup chicken collogen
3 cups chicken bone broth
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
optional:
Finely chopped Jalepenos added with onions
And/or cilantro added after cooking
