A Rice! A Rice Chicken!

(Yes, that title is an ATHF reference)

I've never had so much difficulty figuring out a recipe as much as I did with Mexican rice. It became the one thing I was super afraid of making. The first time I attempted to make it was back in high school with my friend Veronica. My grandfather was visiting from Mexico, so we decided to make him dinner. We were going to make him enchiladas suizas with rice. I remembered all the ingredients my mom used, but we added all of them at the wrong time. We put the bullion cube in while we were toasting the rice and then the tomatoes at the end. It was quite the mess, but my "Pallen" (that's what we call my grandpa) was a good sport and ate it all up, burned bits and all.

There is definitely a right way to make Mexican rice and a wrong way, but you should never eat the stuff that comes out of a box. You deserve better. So, here's my recipe for delicious rice that you can serve alongside all your dishes.


Mexican Rice
Serves 6-8



Ingredients

2 cups of uncooked white long grain rice
3 large tomatoes
1 large onion, quartered
large garlic cloves
4-5 cups of chicken stock
1-2 chicken bullion cubes
1 pinch of cumin
Pepper
4 tbs oil


Directions

In a blender, combine the tomatoes, 1 garlic clove, 1/2 of the onion, and puree until smooth. Add chicken stock to the mixture until the mixture creates 4 cups of liquid.

Meanwhile, dice the remaining onion.

Heat oil in a large stock pot over medium heat. Add 1 garlic clove and saute for 2 minutes. Add the rice, the diced onion and saute until rice begins to toast and turn golden. Remove the garlic clove. Add the tomato-stock mixture to the pot and let cook for about 5 minutes. Add a 1/2 cup of chicken stock. You are adding a total of 4 1/2 cups of liquid. Bring the liquid to a boil, add the bullion cube, cumin, and pepper to taste. Cover and lower heat to a simmer. After about 5 minutes, open the lid (watch out for steam!) and stir, gently. If at this point, not much liquid is left, add the remaining stock. Cook for another 10-15 minutes or until all liquid has evaporated and rice is cooked through.

Remove from heat and let cool for about 5 minutes.

Feel free to add some veggies to the rice after you add the liquid. My mom used to add peas or corn. I hated both, but I was a brat.