This is one of my favorite recipes. I first had it in my childhood in El Paso, TX, and I have some really positive associations with it. (If you knew more about my childhood, positive associations with anything is really saying something.) The recipe was lost, however. In an effort to quell my cravings, I decided to look around for the recipe online, but none of the versions I found seemed quite right.

So I improvised a little — nailed it. Here’s what we have.

1 T butter
1 t minced garlic
1 T dehydrated onion flakes
1 C uncooked rice
1 3/4 C chicken stock

1 chicken breast

1 C sour cream
4 oz chopped green chiles
3 C colby jack or monterey jack cheese, grated

Melt butter in 3 qt saucepan. Add minced garlic and onions. If you want to add fresh onions, please do. I didn’t have any, so dehydrated are fine. Sauté garlic and onions for a moment. Add cup of uncooked rice and coat with butter-onion-garlic mixture. Toasting the rice a little bit is fine here.

Bring the chicken stock to a boil in the device of your choosing — I chose the microwave. Add the boiling stock to the rice, stir it around once, then cover and simmer on low for 20 minutes. If you choose to add four or five strands of saffron to the rice, now is the time to do that. (HA!)

While the rice is going, broil the chicken breast to an internal temp of 145-150° F. White meat is done at an internal temp of 160, so why not take it all the way? Because you’re going to be adding the chicken to piping hot rice in a few minutes, and that will take it the rest of the way to done.

Simple seasoning is great for the chicken: put a little olive oil on the breast, little kosher salt, little cracked pepper, broil in the toaster oven. Why not cook it on top on the rice, you ask? You’re full of questions today. It’s really easy to completely and utterly overcook the chicken when poaching it on top of the rice. Trust me. Chicken leather is not tasty.

When the chicken hits 145°, pull it out and let it cool for a moment. Your rice will be done momentarily, but before it is, get the cheese, sour cream, and green chiles ready. Canned is fine for the chiles, really.

Cut the chicken into bite-sized morsels.

After your 20 minutes for the rice is up, immediately put the rice, chicken, sour cream, and chiles into a medium-large bowl. Combine two-thirds of the cheese. Spread mixture into the bottom of an ungreased 9×9 dish. Top with the remaining third of the cheese.

You can serve the dish at any time now, once the cheese on top gets all melty. Bonus flavor points if you stick the whole thing under the broiler for a few minutes and gently toast the cheese on top.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 20th, 2008 at 11:28 am and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.