“Nobody calls me chicken, Needles.  Nobody.” -The magically non-aging Michael J. Fox as the excitable time-traveller Marty McFly in Back to the Future, Part II

I’m almost ashamed to admit the reasons for my relative absence this week, but in the interests of honesty, I’ll give it to you straight:  I need a break from cooking I think.  It’s not for lack of love, or lack of fascination, or lack of inspiration.  It’s because, well, all anyone wants to talk about right now is Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Thanksgiving, so I feel that I’m boring you people if I give you yet another million posts prattling on about turkey brining and squash roasting.  Additionally, I’ve just begun a new level in school that I’m finding terribly difficult to enjoy so far.  There’s about 6 of us cooking “family meal” for the entire school in about 2 1/2 hours.  It’s all high volume and repetitive, mundane tasks…..with giant bowls and pots and industrial equipment…..and is it just me or is staring at mass quantities of any food pretty much completely and utterly un-appetizing?  There’s also some soul lost in mass-quantity cooking, I think.  I like to focus on one person’s plate at a time, and take the care that’s necessary to see that each element is presented beautifully and cooked perfectly.  And not only that, I’m in the home stretch of my culinary education now, and thusly finding myself in my own head a lot, asking all kinds of questions about what the hell I’ve gotten myself into here.  I’m bound to have these sorts of hiccups, right?  Right?

And so, in the spirit of relentless introspection, I’ve decided to go back to my roots this week and to what I know I do best, and that’s to deliver a smattering of well-made comfort food.  You’ll get a RadioGastronomy Thanksgiving out of me next year, I promise.  :)

Nothing, not even self-doubt and frustration, keeps me out of the kitchen for long, and this is a dish I’ve been wanting to tackle for the longest time.  I’ve actually never made this until now, and I needed a bit of guidance.  I turned to a lady I feel is pretty much the utmost authority on Latin food – the one and only Daisy Martinez, who I’ve watched for years on Thirteen (but who disappointed me thoroughly last year when she sold her soul to Rachel Ray‘s empire and made a worthless show on Food Network, but whatever – she’s still wonderful at what she does!  She’s also an FCI grad!!!).  Of course, on principle, I never follow a recipe exactly.  I read them all the way through first, making notes and changes with a red pen like an evil English teacher until it’s sufficiently Krista-fied.  But Daisy, this one’s certainly directed by you and it turned out so, so wonderfully that I’ve only got you to thank.  The leftovers didn’t last long in our house, and that’s always pretty much as good a sign as any of a true success!

This is another one of those “it takes a long time but the pay-off is big” kind of recipes.  There’s nothing particularly difficult about it at all, other than that it involves a lot of steps and ingredients, all of which can be found at any respectable grocery store.  Arroz Con Pollo is so much more than it’s name implies.  Nothing sounds more bland and ho-hum than chicken and rice, but when it turns all Latin-y and becomes Arroz Con Pollo, magic happens.  Abracadabra…..colors and flavors and smiles!

Ingredients:

For the achiote oil:

1 tbsp. achiote (or annatto) seeds

1/2 cup olive oil

For the sofrito:

1 medium yellow onion, washed, peeled, and cut into large chunks

1 large Cubanelle pepper, washed, cored, seeded, and cut into large chunks

6 cloves of garlic, smashed and peeled

1/4 bunch of cilantro, washed well and stems removed

2 plum tomatoes, washed, cored, and cut into large chunks

1 small red bell pepper, washed, cored, seeded, and cut into large chunks

1 whole chicken, cut into 1/8′s (NOTE:  Your butcher can do this for you, and you can usually buy whole chickens in the self-service area of the grocery store that have already been cut into 1/8′s.  I beg you to purchase a free-roaming, properly fed chicken, but I’m not the food police.)

1/3 cup pimiento-stuffed olives, coarsely chopped

1 tsp. ground cumin

1 pinch of ground cloves

4 cups long-grain white rice (NOTE:  I used Uncle Ben’s, the tried and true…..)

5-6 cups of chicken stock (preferably home-made and definitely of the low-sodium variety)

1/3 cup frozen green peas

Kosher salt & freshly ground black pepper

Instructions:

1.  In a small frying pan, heat the achiote seeds and the olive oil over a medium flame until you hear a nice sizzle noise develop.  Give it about 10-15 seconds of happy sizzle noises, and then remove it from the heat and allow to cool down.  The oil will be a lovely auburn/saffron-y color.  This is good!  Strain the oil into a large soup pot or Dutch oven, and discard the achiote seeds.  Reserve the pot with the oil in it – we’ll come back to it in a minute.

2.  In a food processor, prepare the sofrito.  Pulse together the onion, cubanelle pepper, garlic, cilantro, tomatoes, and bell pepper until everything is finely minced and incorporated.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  (NOTE:  You will need 1/2 cup of sofrito for this recipe.  Any extra can be used as a salsa on chips while you’re waiting to finish cooking, or can be frozen for later use.)

3.  Put the pot with the achiote oil on the stove over medium-high heat.  When the oil is hot, season the chicken pieces liberally with salt and pepper and then sear, skin side down first, until nicely browned on all sides.  (Work in batches, if necessary.  You want to make sure you don’t over-crowd the pot or you won’t get a good sear.)  This process should take around 10 minutes.  Leave the little brown bits that develop on the bottom of the pan, but don’t let them burn.  They are your friends, and add tremendous flavor!  Also, if the oil begins to darken and change color, the heat is too high, and you’ll want to lower the flame a bit.  As the chicken pieces are done, remove them from the pan and set aside on a plate.

4.  When all the chicken pieces are done, add the sofrito mixture and raise the flame to high heat.  Boil it until almost all of the water is evaporated from the sofrito.  Add cumin, cloves, and pimiento olives and lower the flame back down to medium.

5.  Add all of the rice, and stir with a wooden spoon until it’s all coated with oil and sofrito and spices.  Return the chicken pieces to the pot, and cover with chicken stock until the liquid level is about 1″ higher than the rice.  Cook over high heat until the rice and liquid are at the same level, and then stir gently, cover, and reduce the flame to low.  Leave alone for about 20 minutes, or until all of the liquid is absorbed and the chicken is cooked through.  Stir in the peas and season to taste with salt and pepper.  If there is a bitter taste, add a teaspoon or so of sugar at the very end as well.  Serve hot in large, shallow bowls.

Yield: Easily makes 6 heaping dinner-sized servings