I was in an “island” mood today and decided to fix oxtails and I needed rice as a side dish.
I’m excited about the rice I made since I’ve never grasped Jamaican rice and peas.
I fixed a medium pot of long rice (I eyeball so I don’t know how much I used). I let it cool a bit then transferred the rice to my electric skillet. I used about a tablespoon of butter and added a can of pigeon peas (drained).
I dug through my seasoning cupboard - I was looking for Sazon and came up empty.
I found an envelope of dry onion soup mix and added the soup with another teaspoon of butter. I used chives as garnish.
Delicious - not Jamaican, but still pretty good.
Does anyone have an easy “Spanish Rice” recipe? I’d love Arroz con Pollo in the next few days.
Melt some butter in a heated skillet, throw in some chopped onion, saute until soft and golden. Pour in a cup of raw long-grain rice, saute a bit but don’t brown. Toss in a can of chopped tomatoes and their liquid with enough added water (or stock) to make two cups. Bring to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer, covered, until liquid is gone and rice is done.
Sometimes she’d brown some ground beef along with the onions to make a more substantial dish. I like to add in some garlic too.
As an aid toward authenticity, obtain achiote seed and warm them in a quantity of olive or other oil, strain out the seeds. Use the oil in making the rice. Don’t spill it anywhere you don’t want a deep red stain.
To add to this, achiote paste (recado rojo) is used throughout the Yucatan as a rub or marinade for meats (grilled achiote shrimp, cochinita pibil, pibil de pollo, poc chuc, etc.) Also, achiote (annatto seeds) are what gives cheddar cheese its orange color. Achiote has a unique, “earthy,” slightly iodine-y taste to it.
The interesting thing (for me) about that sazon package is the translation of culantro y achiote as coriander and annato. Now, cilantro often gets translated as coriander (although for US markets, it’s usually just cilantro.) However, culantro is a different herb from a different genus than cilantro. It’s sometimes referred to as long coriander or recao (Puerto Rico), as well as a number of other names, but, in most cookbooks that use this herb, it simply remains culantro (koo-LAHN-tro.) Whatever name it goes by, I don’t think it should be translated as “coriander.”