“Arroz con pollo is a traditional dish of Spain and Latin America.” – Wikipedia

Arroz con pollo recipe

Arroz con pollo (or chicken and rice) is a deceptively simple dish. Despite being easy to make, it has a ton of flavor. Anyone who travels to Latin America ends up raving about this meal.

And for good reason too.

The dish tastes great and really fills you up. Eating a big plate of chicken and rice after working out or sightseeing is a good way to get your daily dose of carbs and protein.

Every Latin nation has their own take on this dish, but the Peruvian version is generally considered to be the best. Peru is well-known for its food and attracts all kinds of famous chefs, including guys like Anthony Bourdain, who come down every year to sample cuisine.

Unfortunately, a lot of the great recipes never make it beyond the border.

Western cookbooks and websites have very poor imitations of Peruvian dishes. And arroz con pollo is no exception. The English recipes I found didn’t do it any justice.

How you got an authentic arroz con pollo recipe

To improve on both my language and culinary skills, I’ve picked up several Peruvian cookbooks that are written in Spanish. Due to a variety of reasons these can’t be purchased outside the country.

Unless you’re willing to pay $900 and take a 10 hour flight you’ll never get to see the recipes.

Until now.

Because I’m hand translating all the instructions, I can share some of the authentic meals with you.

Depending on the interest, this might become part of an ongoing series.

Arroz con pollo recipe

Before getting into the actual instructions, you should know that this recipe makes a lot of food. You’ll be eating leftovers for a while.

Ingredients:

1 chicken

1/4 cup oil

1 onion (diced)

3 cloves of garlic (chopped)

1 green chili (ground)

1/2 cup cilantro with spinach (ground)

1 cup beer

4 cups rice

1/2 cup peas

1/2 cup corn

1/2 cup carrots (chopped)

1 pepper (cut into strips)

4 cups boiling water

Instructions:

You’ll need a few kitchen appliances, like a frying pan or large pot, to prepare this. Get them ready before you actually start cooking.

Cut the chicken into pieces and season with garlic. Fry the chicken in oil. Then remove the chicken and brown the garlic, onion, peppers, cilantro, and spinach in the same oil.

Re-add the chicken pieces and beer. Fry for a few more minutes. Then remove the chicken and add rice with carrots and peas. Add the corn and pepper, add water. Season to your liking and cook for 15 minutes.

Serve with the chicken pieces.

Other notes

This might sound more complex than some easier meals, like burger patties or eggs, but it isn’t that tough to make. You basically just need to be able to use a frying pan or pot. The whole dish took me less than 30 minutes to prepare and that was with zero experience cooking it.

Also, if you live alone or are only cooking for two you’ll have a lot of leftovers. This is great because it saves you from having to make anything the next day.

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