Asturian-American Migration Forum

ARROZ CON POLLO (CHICKEN WITH RICE)


1 chicken, cut up
1 can chicken broth
3 cups rice
1 can pimientos, cut into small pieces
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon saffron, crushed
dry white wine
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 medium onions, chopped
parsley
olive oil


Fry the onion and garlic in a generous amount of good olive oil, and remove. Fry the chicken until brown, and return the onion and garlic mixture to the pan. Pour in the chicken broth, white wine, and water to make a total of 6 cups of liquid. Add the bay leaves, parsley, pimientos, and saffron and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the rice and bring to a full boil, covered. Reduce heat. Simmer for 5 minutes, turn off the heat, and let stand 20 to 30 minutes. The rice will absorb all of the liquid and it will be ready to serve.

You can also add chorizos slices (add with chicken), shrimp (last five minutes) and other ingredients (frozen green peas added during the last five minutes are particularly good) to turn it into a paella.

I made arroz con pollo for my abuela on Friday. I added peas and homemade chorizo. I guess it was more like a "paella'. I can say using the home-made smoked chorizo made all the difference. Everone loved it.

I will be making Fabada next weekend for her. I convinced her to let me use blood sausage (morcilla) in addition to the chorizo's.


Is "paella" very common in Asturias? I know it is made differently all over the penninsula. What are some common ingredients found in paella asturiana? When I visited my primos they used mostly seafood I believe with fish stock (caldo de marisco).

Good things to add are mussels, shrimp, clams (any hard shell small ones) and cockles. (wonderful if you can find them, smaller and sweeter than clams). I add the different ingredients at different times because some cook faster than others. Monkfish (pixín) and sea scallops are good too.

For fabada, I strongly suggest beans from Asturias and Asturian-style morcilla (I like the kind with onions), which you can get from La Tienda. The fabes are expensive, but worth every penny. As my grandmother used to tell me, if you start with good ingredients you can't go wrong.

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I also add a can of pimientos in puree ( I put the pimientos in a blender)
it makes the rice more tasty.....also a little envelope of Sazon Goya.....
I also add green olives and capers, bay leaves, cumin, a dash of oregano.
Some people put a little bit of beer when they cook the rice...I put sidra, like half a bottle...when it's done you put some petit pois on top of it and some pimientos.

The fun part (to me at least) is that you can add anything you like and it may never be exactly the same twice. I'm especially fond of the cockles and pixin, but the home made and smoked chorizo is, to me at least, absolutely essential if you you are going to tirn the arroz con pollo into paella. And yes, I always use bay leaf. I just forgot to mention it.

We're due to make another batch soon.. We usually make 60 pounds or so at a time, with our kids (all middle aged now).

My family always cook arroz con pollo every sunday....
I remember it was done at my grandmother's home, later my
mother, now it's in my home.
There's a little restaurant in Hialeah,"Yoyito's" their arroz con pollo is divine!
We use to go there when I do not want to cook they only have like 14 tables and people make a long line to get in, but they only make it every sunday.
The family work together there, they are Cubans that left Cuba, they
lived in Spain and after a few years they came here. The lady in charge
of the cooking on sundays is the mother in law in that family. She
explained on Tv one day that she cooks like 14 drumsticks with water,
bay leaves, cumin, salt and half a medium onion....she said she make
the sofrito ( when you fry the onions and garlic with olive oil) and then
she add the chicken that she previously boiled, she uses the chicken
broth she made....let me tell you, it's so delicious that you can see
politicians, movie stars, people from everywhere making a line to eat
there. I try to go for late lunch like 3 or 4 pm so the line is smaller...

El arroz con pollo era un plato tipico en los restaurantes españoles de Nueva York a principios del s. XX, y que recomendaban probar los periódicos.
The rice with chicken was a typical dishes in the Spanish restaurants from New York at beginning of the XX century, and that the newspapers recommended to eat
http://historiasjasm.blogspot.com.es/20 ... -rice.html

That's interesting, JASM! I wondered how chicken and rice got to be a favorite with Asturians.

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¡Ah, perfecto! Me preguntaba cómo era que el arroz con pollo llegó a ser tan importante para los asturianos.

“The chicken and rice and the yellow color of the rice” suggests the Cuban use of bijol in place of saffron. One of my undergraduate professors was Cuban and was surprised that my family used saffron rather than bijol. Bijol is finely ground achiote seed, and adds a bright yellow color and a flavor of its own (quite unlike that of saffron) to the rice.

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La frase "el pollo y el arroz y el color amarillo del arroz" sugiere el uso cubano de bijol en lugar de azafrán. Durante mis estudios universitarios uno de mis profesores fue cubano y se sorprende de que mi familia utiliza bijol en lugar de azafrán. Bijol es semillas de achiote en polvo, y añade un color amarillo brillante y su sabor propio (bastante diferente de la de azafrán) para el arroz.

Hay que recordar que el arroz en Asturias solía ser un plato para los días de fiesta, igual que pasaba con los garbanzos, pero no tiene como es lógico la tradicción que otras zonas de España, en especial el Levante.