20K and a Year Away

Wednesday after Christmas, we made our way back to Sra. Petra’s house to learn how to make arroz con pollo with her daughter, Maria. We had to swing by the Cooperativa (supermarket) to get the ingredients then take them up to their house to cook. After three tries, I managed to get a taxi that could come pick us up. We had him wait for us at the store while we called them to get the list of stuff to buy.

We went into to store and called. Out of nowhere, a ton of people showed up and needed their groceries right now! What seemed like a simple process of getting a list of stuff turned into an obstacle course and episode of survivor. We did our best to fight our way to the produce counters and locate jars of olives – NOT the other brand, only Don Juan – and bags of rice – Arrozisima! for goodness sake! We grabbed some soda for everyone, too, and made our way to the checkout counter. It was only slightly frazzling. When the woman told me $15, I tried to give her $40 because I heard $25. We all had a good chuckle over that. HAHA!

Ingredients:

• Chicken – we got 3lbs breast, but “pollo del patio” is perferred
• Bag of rice
• garlic
• cabbage
• green pepper
• onion
• celery
• carrots
• green olives
• raisins
• caldo de pollo seasoning packets (bouillon)
• culantro

After all was said and done, we got to Petra’s house without cabbage and raisins, casualties of war. Maria said we could live without the cabbage, but she sent someone to the corner store to grab some raisins, which apparently make or break this dish.

So, I really wanted to learn how to make this and was looking forward to working through the steps, but before I even got everything unpacked, the women of the house had already descended on the vegetables and chicken and everything was chopped and cleaned and in pots ready to cook! They were so efficient, I just stood back and let the magic happen.

Maria put everything together and had me watch. They put part of the veggies in a pot with the chicken to cook and kept the rest to add with the rice. She let the chicken cook for a little while then added water to cover and let it boil for about 20 minutes.

After the chicken was cooked, she let it cool and shredded it then set it aside to work on the rice. In a large pot, she started to heat some oil. To this, she added the carrots. She cooked them until the oil turned orange. After that, she added rice, seasoning, and some of the veggies and let them cook. Then, she poured in the water from the chicken and added enough water to cover the rice.

After this had cooked a little, Maria covered it with the shredded chicken and remaining vegetables. She left it to cook until all the water was absorbed. It was delicious.

We ate our arroz con pollo at the table while Sra Petra and her husband lounged in the hammocks. We talked about land and houses and owning hotels and growing food. It was a good afternoon. We will go see Sra Petra and her family one more time before we leave for our next stop next Wednesday. They want to cook for us one more time. I am in!