| 30 January 2010
Posted in
Entrees -
Rice
I love Mexican rice. People often confuse it with Spanish rice and end up mixing the recipe together, which is NOT good! Spanish rice is yellow and has saffron and chicken broth whereas Mexican rice is red/orange and cooked with tomatoes/tomato sauce. A couple tips I've learned from the past are that I don't wash or rinse the rice before I cook it. Rinsing removes the starch that the rice needs to be fluffy. Rice also keeps absorbing the water-tomato-juice after it is done cooking, so remember that if the grains still seem like they have a slight crunch at the end of 20 minutes of cooking in water, it's okay.
Mis en Place:
- 1 cup long-grain rice
- 1/2 onion chopped
- 1/2 clove of garlic
- 2 cup tomato sauce
- 1 1/4 cup water
- Salt + Pepper to tatse
- 1 tbsp. Olive Oil
- 1 tbsp. butter
Preparation
Step 1: The Rice:
Melt butter in sauce pan on medium-high heat. When the butter is completely melted, throw in garlic and cook until it is lightly browned or when you can begin to smell the garlic. Stir in your cup of rice and make sure the melted butter completely coats the rice. If there's not enough butter to coat the rice, you can add some olive oil or more butter. Toast the rice until lightly browned -- not burned. Add tomato sauce and 1/2 cup of water. Since the temperature of your whole dish has now lowered by a significant amount, wait until the tomato sauce has come to a simmer to add another 1/2 cup of water. You can add some chili pepper here if you'd like to add a little spice, but because I'm plating my rice with salsa that already has California Chili Pepper, I'm leaving it out. Cover with a clear top (so you can monitor without opening) and wait about 10 minutes without stirring or taking off the top. Now add another 1/4 cup of water, make sure rice is evenly distributed around the pan (because sometimes the rice at the bottom gets cooked while the rice at the top still has a little crunch). Wait another 10 minutes, covered. Take the pan off the heat, and wait let the dish cool.
