Arroz con pollo

Preparation – 10 minutes

Dice the two onions, red- and green bell pepper. We're going to make a basic sofrito to start this dish. The only big difference is that we're going to skip tomatoes.

Finely chop up the cloves of garlic and jalapeño peppers too, set aside. Clean the chicken thighs, remove any excess fat and/or blood. Boil 1000 ml (1 litre) water to make the chicken stock.  

We've used two chicken stock cubes for this, but you can use fresh or canned chicken stock if available.  

Cooking the arroz con pollo (chicken and rice) – 45 minutes

Heat up a tablespoon worth of olive oil in the large pot. Make a basic sofrito by adding in the diced onion, red- and green bell peppers and jalapeño peppers. Sauté until glazed.

Add in chicken thighs, cover with the mixture and pour in at least 100 ml of white cooking wine. Add more wine if you like to. Simmer for 4-5 minutes. Open up a can of pickled red bell peppers, roughly tear or slice them and add to the large pot.

Pour in 500 ml of chicken stock and bring to a boil. Place the lid on the large pot and let cook for 25 - 30 minutes, while stirring every now and then. Remove chicken thighs from the large pan and let them cool off.

Add all of the white (pearl) rice to the large pan containing the remaining liquids. Add more chicken stock and/or water if needed. Add in 1 or 2 teaspoons of yellow food colouring to really bring out the colours.

Cook the rice until done. Shred the cooked chicken thighs and add those piece back in the large pan with the cooked rice. Add in as much (frozen) peas as you'd like along with more picked red bell pepper for decoration.

Bring the dish to taste with salt and pepper. Serve on a nice big plate, enjoy!