Easy Mexican Rice

Call it Mexican or Spanish, I found this Tomato Rice recipe quite famous in both these countries. Now of-course there are different variations available to make this One Pot Rice. But as usually I always lean towards the easy and manageable-with-minimal -ingredients recipes. But before I tell you much about this recipe, let me tell you an interesting thing…

You see that chocolaty dollop of thing beside the rice? You know what it is? It’s a simpler version of sticky-honey chicken.. I know what you are thinking? There’s Mexican Rice at one side, and it’s being complemented with a Chinese dish? What’s wrong with me?

I had some chicken left in the fridge, and I was looking for something little sweet, dry; I couldn’t think of anything else, and ended up making this!! Weird but it’s done now! Ok, let me just get over with the recipes.

RICE First…

I always prefer to wash the rice before cooking, so I washed it nicely, then dried the rice grains by laying them evenly on a big Thali or plate.
In the cooking pot, I added little oil and the dried rice. I had to wait for sometime, till the rice started turning brown in colour. It will take time to get that ‘nutty’ look.
I added garlic powder, chopped onion and carrots and little salt and pepper on it. I stirred till the onion started turning soft.
I had made tomato puree at home: boil whole tomatoes with some water and add a bay-leaf in the water. once the tomatoes are boiled, discard the bay-leaf and blend the tomatoes without the water. You can keep the water to use as a stock.
Once the vegetables softened, I added 1 cup of tomato sauce. (I was using 2 cups of rice), stirred a bit then I added- 2 cups of tomato puree and 1/2 cup of the water which I kept aside after boiling the tomatoes in it.
When the puree was coming to boil, I added salt in the mix and keeping the flame low, covered the pan and kept it for 20 minutes. I didn’t have to add any extra water in it, in case you need to add any extra water in between, add warm water not normal temperature.

SO it was a simple Rice recipe and came along quite well.

The Chicken on the other hand turned out to be finger-licking good– in case you want to try:

I marinated the chicken pieces with salt, pepper, tomato ketchup, chili sauce and soy sauce for about 20 minutes.
I added little oil in the pan and placed the chicken one by one on the pan and let them cook slowly till they get the charred look on them. Once happy with the look, I kept the chicken pieces at the side of the pan and made space in the middle of the pan.
I added some diced onions in the middle of the pan and waited for them get caramelised.
By this time, in a small bowl, I added, some ketchup, chili sauce, soy sauce and honey (the portion of honey was more than the other sauces) and mixed them well.
once the onions were getting some colour, I brought the chicken and onions together, gave them a good stir.
I added the mixed sauce and little salt and pepper. Gave the whole thing good stir, once the sauce dried out over the chicken, I switched the flame off.

And everything was ready to serve on a plate. I ask you to try this recipe for this weekend may be?