Abuela's secrets!

   I'm sure everybody has at least one favorite dish that can only be made by your Grandma and nobody can repeat it and make it taste exactly like hers. Reason # 4582 why I love to be married to Justin is that I gain a Puerto Rican Grandma (Julia) who is an amazing cook and makes the best "Arroz Con Pollo" in the entire world! There is no way anybody can ever make it taste the same as hers, but we can definitely keep trying. My sister-in-law, Rachel, was trying to get Abuela's recipe for years and all she got was: it's so easy, you add a little bit of that and a little bit of that, and when it feel like that you add a little bit of that! Yeah right, good luck with that! So she took matters in her own hands, watched Abuela making it all the time, writing down the "observations", and trying it out over and over again until she got it pretty close! And guess what, she was super nice to share the recipe with me, so now I'm sharing it with you! The list of ingredients is:

*  chicken (I use 4 drumsticks and 2 tights)
*  Adobo seasoning
*  2 cups long grain rice
*  1 can (8oz) tomato sauce
*  1/4 cup manzanilla olives (stuffed with pimientos)
*  1 tsp. capers
*  1/2 cup Sofrito (I got the red one)
*  2 cloves garlic
*  1 envelope onion soup
*  1 envelope Sazon seasoning
*  1/3 cup oil
*  3 cups water (you may need to adjust it depending on how you like your rice)

   OK, don't be afraid of all those "exotic" names, you can find all of this in the International/Latin section of any supermarket (GOYA makes all of them). Here is what you do: sprinkle the chicken with an Adobo seasoning and keep in the fridge for a couple of hours. Heat the oil in a pan, brown the chicken on both sides, and remove from the pot. Into the same pot add sofrito, tomato sauce, olives, capers, and garlic and cook on low heat for about 5 minutes until the flavors "marry" together. Add the onion soup, sazon, and rice and cook everything for 5 more minutes, stirring it often so it won't stick to the bottom of the pot, and then add water and cook on low heat until half of the water evaporates. Return the browned chicken to the pot, "bury" it in the rice, cover with the lid and simmer for about 30-40 minutes. I was afraid that the rice will burn a little bit on the bottom so I used the dutch oven as my pot, covered everything with the lid and baked in the oven at 350F for 40 minutes. It turned out just right.

   It's hard for me to judge the authenticity of the dish, but I think I did a good job because Justin told me he was not hungry and then he had a huge bowl of my Arroz Con Pollo! I think I still need to adjust few things to make it more "Abuela's like" but I think that as for a first try I did good! Thank you Sis for sharing the recipe!

Hope you like it.
Magda