Mexican Rice

I received a couple of emails asking me what I meant by Mexican Rice. To be honest, I'm not sure what I meant by the term because rice in Mexico is not like this! Lol! This style of rice is fairly typical of what South Texas cooks churn out of their kitchens, featuring a lot of spice and fresh produce.

I will walk you through the steps that I go through to make it, but understand that every cook has their own ingredients and believes theirs is the best. For example,in my opinion, my family's way is much tastier than what I find in most other kitchens and even local restaurants.  Ha! (Oh, hold on, my cap has become a bit tight on my head. How odd.......It's almost as if the cap shrank...)

Ingredients
1/2 cup of long grain rice
canola oil to cover the bottom of a pot
1/2 roma tomato, diced small
1/4 small onion, diced small
1 cup chicken stock (I prefer Kitchen Basics. The Swanson broth is all salt and no flavor.)
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp paprika
handful cilantro, chopped
salt/pepper to taste

Makes 4 1/4 cup servings

1. Cover the bottom of a small pot with canola oil and place on medium heat.

2. Once the oil is hot, put in the rice and allow to cook until brown. The oil should not be over the rice, as if deep frying, but each grain of rice should wind up coated at least. (Warning: If you have too much oil, the rice will come out shiny and greasy. Blech!)

3.  Once the rice is browned, add in the onion and tomato. Let them saute for about 2 minutes.

4. Add the chicken stock, garlic powder, chili powder, paprika, salt, pepper, and cilantro. Stir once to incorporate all the spices and cover the pot with a lid. (Warning: Don't stir any more than that or the rice will come out sticky and gummy. I prefer individual grains of cooked rice.)

5. Turn the heat down to low and let the rice simmer until all of the liquid is gone.

6. Turn the heat off and let the covered rice sit undisturbed for about 10 minutes. The rice will continue to cook with the residual steam and will fluff up.

I generally make a whole cup of rice at a time and, therefore, double all of the ingredients. I just made a half cup today, though, to have photos for this post.

Variations:

A. Instead of cilantro, you can put 1/4 of a bell pepper or a whole jalapeno. Just be sure to put in one of them for flavor.

B. Some cooks like to put ground cumin instead of the paprika.

C. Some cooks will use canned tomato sauce in place of the fresh tomato. One friend of mine actually roasts whole tomatoes and then blends them with onion and puts the resulting tomato sauce in her rice.

An illustration of the amount of tomato and onion.

Browned rice.

(Btw, I actually have too much oil here. You can see it. I drained the extra before

going to my next step. Hey, sorry for the screw up! Who do I look like, Martha Stewart? Sheesh!)

Rice with slightly cooked tomato and onion.

Water has evaporated, but rice is still slightly hard.

Flowered rice in an unfocused photo

F-ing auto focus....