Perfect Arroz con Pollo

A Comfort Classic Updated

Chicken and rice is one of the ultimate comfort food dishes found around the world. 🌎

The idea of taking two humble ingredients and transforming them into the most delicious meal has always appealed to me. The outcome depends more on the cook and less on the ingredients.

While you can pinpoint practically anywhere on the globe, chicken and rice for me has always been Arroz con Pollo 🇨🇺 (although in the last few years Hainanese Chicken & Rice, also Sichuan Chicken & Rice have both become craveworthy for me) 😇

I grew up in household that loved Cuban food.

I remember visiting Miami cafes as a kid ordering Bistec de Palomilla piled high with shoestring fries, Vaca Frita, Mariquitas and black beans with rice… 🤤

Mama Octopod cooked Cuban cookbook recipes… and also a good family friend Giselle taught us in a home kitchen how to make Cuban food that was to die for. (Giselle was from NY and a Cuban cooking savant). She gifted my family with her Arroz con Pollo and also the best Cuban flan recipe I’ve ever had… to date.

Arroz con Pollo at is best is tender chicken, blanketed in tender rice… with onions, bell pepper, garlic and saffron… accented with peas and olives… among other things. The perfect interplay of the flavor wheel.

Since chicken and rice are both “blank slate” ingredients, they can be 2 of the biggest offenders for bland/boring food.

After making this for family recently we all remarked how we never order Arroz con Pollo out at restaurants because it always seems to fall short of “what it should be”.

I’ve been wanting to make this Substack for a while and I went through Mama Octopod’s recipe, Giselle’s recipe, and also many old Cuban cookbooks I’ve collected and applied what I’ve learned in my cooking career to make what I believe is the best Arroz con Pollo you make on the planet.

As a fact check, this was echoed (without asking) when I served this to picky Cuban eating family members who declared “this is the best arroz con pollo I’ve ever had”.

So let’s make this top tier comfort food and make you a hero for your friends and family… this is soul food at the highest level with explosive and nuanced flavors that are pure alchemy.

Getting the right chicken, with the proper aromatics, vegetables and spices is key. Then finding a way to cook the chicken without over cooking the rice has made many trip up on making this “simple” comfort food into elite status.

I’ve got everything detailed here to make sure you make the best Arroz con Pollo 🇨🇺 you and yours have had

This one pot meal, I’m convinced, could achieve world peace ✌️