Chicken and "Yellow" Rice with Avocado and Tomato Salad

Chicken and "Yellow" Rice
with Avocado and Tomato Salad

There are few salads that I love more in life than fresh Avocado paired with fresh tomato, a little minced onion and garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil and fresh lime juice. 

Top  it off with fresh Culantro or Cilantro and wow!

Sunday, hubby Dan and our Golden, Eddie, went to the Clermont Farmer's Market.  I promise I will bring you a special post from there very soon.

Look at the size of this Avocado -

Look at the pit!

I only used a third of this tonight to make the incredible salad.

But what to make for a main dish?  Well, I had Sofrito on hand in the freezer from last week. 

http://welcometojustforcooking.blogspot.com/2011/09/fusion-sofrito.html

I also had chicken leg quarters on hand and all of the other ingredients except... so Saffron, which is a traditional and expensive ingredient in yellow rice. 

I bought Saffron once.  When the tube it was stored in opened up in my fridge, I thought I would have a heart attack.  It was like spilling gold.  

Sure I could have run to the store and bought a package of yellow rice mix.  But try this; I guarantee you, you will not miss the Saffron at all! 

Now all the ingredients you see here tonight, except for the chicken, make enough for four servings.  I only added chicken for two.  I made the extra rice as my hubby likes to take it to work the next day.  If you want to truly make this a dish to serve four, just use a slightly bigger Dutch oven than I show here and add the two extra pieces of chicken.  I am writing the recipe for four -- as not to confuse you as to why you only see two pieces of chicken.

Ingredients for the Chicken and Rice:

2 tablespoons Olive Oil
4 Chicken Leg Quarters, skin on
2 teaspoons Adobo Seasoning
2/3 cup diced Green Bell Pepper
2/3 cup diced white Onion
1/2 cup Sofrito (home style or red store-bought), divided
1 cup Valencia short grain Rice
1 12 ounce light Beer**
2 cups Water, divided
Sea Salt, to taste
Freshly Ground Black Pepper, to taste
1 teaspoon Annato
1 teaspoon Turmeric
1 teaspoon Paprika
2 teaspoons Dried Cilantro or Marjoram 
1/2 cup frozen Peas
Fresh Culantro or Cilantro for Garnish, optional

For the Salad:

1 Florida Avocado, chopped
2 Tomatoes, diced
2 tablespoons Olive Oil
Sea Salt, to taste
Freshly Ground Pepper, to taste
Juice of one Lime
Fresh chopped Culantro or Cilantro

** Don't want to use beer because you're serving this to the kiddies?  You can sub low sodium chicken broth, but I would greatly reduce the amount of salt you use in this dish.  There is plenty of sodium in the Sofrito -

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a heavy Dutch oven, heat the olive oil.  Sprinkle chicken with Adobo. 

Brown lightly on both sides.  Remove to a plate.

Add green pepper, onions and 1/2 of the Sofrito.  Cook over medium heat for five minutes. 

Add rice, beer, half of the water, and remaining seasonings.  Stir in dried Cilantro or Marjoram.  Add chicken.  Bring to boil and reduce to simmer.

Once oven is up to temperature, cover with lid and bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes.  At the end of that time, carefully remove the pot from the oven.  Add the peas, the remaining water and remaining sofrito.  Stir gently and return pot to oven, uncovered.

Bake for a remaining ten minutes.

Keep warm on stove until ready to serve. 

For the salad, simply combine all ingredients and let it hang out at room temperature for at least 15-20 minutes.

Eddie, resting after a fun day at the farmer's market.

Notes:  I served this with store-bought frozen plantains.  No product was supplied to blogger and not a paid endorsement.