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Welcome to my small little world of sweet treats. Passionate about baking cakes, cupcakes, truffles and eating them too! Having being exposed to such wonderful home-made treats from a very young age, I hope to bring across my passion and love for baking and creating new recipes through this site. All in all, this will focus on fun as well as healthy baking, decorating and everything else creative (could include my love for painting/sketching as well, so I could divert a little from my blog's title :)). Thanks for visiting!

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Costa Rican Arroz con Pollo (Chicken with Rice)


One of my fond memories of visiting Costa Rica was eating Arroz con Pollo for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yes, I made sure I didn't miss out on my daily dose of this amazing dish! After being dissapointed with the way it tasted in a few restaurants in New York City and in Panama, I decided that enough is enough. I just cannot desperately be on a look out for restaurants that serve this dish. So much so that I've dragged my husband to some not so great joints just because they had this dish on their menu. Only to get dissapointed though! Here's my take on homemade Costa Rican Arroz con Pollo. I couldn't find the exact ingredients, so I had to play around with what I could get here. And to my surprise, it was a great dish and a nice change from the regular Indian chicken with rice. And instead of the regular french fries that I had on the side, I replaced it with sweet potato baked fries! I have to admit that the regular french fries are out for me and the sweet potato ones are in! Will post the recipe for that sometime soon. They are yummy, healthy, sweet and the way I made them were tangy and spicy as well. Lots of flavor packed into one fry.

Ingredients:

For the chicken part: 5 piece chicken drumsticks, 2 tablespoon vegetable oil, 4 cloves garlic, 3 celery sticks, salt, pepper, oregano, 1 tbsp annato seed, paprika to taste
For the Rice: 2 cup rice (any rice preferably long grain rice), 1 tbsp vegetable oil, 2 minced carrots, 1 teaspoon annatto seed, pinch of salt, 4.5 cups chicken stock 
For the Sauce: 1/2 cup onions, finely chopped 1/2 cup red bell pepper, finely chopped 1 tomato, cilantro, 1 small can tomato paste, 4 tbsp goya sofrito, 6 tbsp salsa ranchera to taste



The Chicken: Heat vegetable oil in a saucepan over medium high. Add chicken, salt, pepper, garlic, oregano, cumin, and celery. Turning occasionally until chicken is golden brown evenly. Debone chicken. Skin chicken (optional.) The Rice Heat lard or vegetable oil in a medium heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add rice stirring often until rice is slightly brown. Add carrots, annatto, and salt. Add 1 ¼ quart water. Bring mix to a boil over medium high heat. Cover saucepan and simmer until rice is tender. Turn off heat and leave rice in saucepan covered for 10 minutes.














 



3 comments:

  1. Wow! Chitra,

    Amazing photo shots of the dish.. I will try it because my husband loves mexican food, he worked in Mexico for 6 yrs.. and speaks fluently Spanish.. the dish looks similar to our chicken biriyani..I love anything with chicken.. will try it and let you know how it came out.

    Thanks,
    Eveline

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  2. Looks yummmmm. Sam made this once and recipe was slightly different, but it was the PR version :). I must say though, it tasted amazing but it didn't look quite this yummy.

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  3. This is such a great site! I like the way you set this up! Great content and images as well! Thanks for sharing this! Looks delicious...Daniel

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