Thursday, October 29, 2009

Chickamauga Chicken and Spanish Rice

I was asked to host Guess Who's Coming To Dinner over at Welcome to Our KrAzy KiTcHeN this week. It was fun getting to vandalize...errr...deface....errr...POST on someone else's blog.

I chose to go with a recipe that Trevor and I made up two years ago, Chickamauga Chicken. It's basically a grilled chicken breast topped with fried corn tortilla strips, black olives, green onion, cheese, and a bbq/ranch sauce. Go over there to see the full details.

But I needed a good side to go with the Chickamauga Chicken and decided to make a Spanish Rice. I decided to go with South Texas Spanish Rice by Carey Starzinger.

South Texas Spanish Rice
posted to the BBQ List by Carey Starzinger on Aug 5, 1996


Ingredients

1 1/2 cups long grain rice

1 ea onion, medium, chopped fine
1 ea jalapeno, chopped fine
2 cups chicken stock
1 cup tomato sauce

1/2 tablespoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 cup frozen sweet peas

3 tablespoons vegetable oil


Instructions

Brown rice in oil until just starting to brown. Add onion and jalapeno and brown 1 minute more. Add all remaining ingredients and stir only the top (not the rice!) boil 20 seconds, cover and reduce heat to med low for 20 minutes (do not remove lid). Leave covered for at least 30 minutes (the longer the better). Fluff with fork.


I gathered up the ingredients, except the frozen peas, as I had none. I ended up subbing some corn, made sense to me.

Three tablespoons of oil sounded excessive, so I figured if I was going to be excessive, then I was going to be excessively excessive! French have the mirepoix. Cajuns have the trinity. I went with the menage-a-fat. One tablespoon each of bacon fat, butter, and canola oil.

This seems just like a pilaf so far....

It turned out great!

Trevor ate three helpings (he did just come home from football practice) and everyone else loved it too. For such an easy dish, this one is a keeper!