Ben's Adobo Chicken & Spanish Rice

Last week Ben over at What's Cooking posted his version of Adobo Chicken. It sounded like something that Matt would really like, I don't cook enough Mexican for his tastes, so I added it to this week's menu.

It was very tasty & quite easy to make. Toasting the spices to make the paste to marinade the chicken smelled unbelievably good, it was driving Matt crazy sitting in his home office. For the two of us I used 4 chicken thighs & made half the marinade. I stuck right to Ben's recipe without any changes because this was something I'd never made before & I wanted to try his original version. We were surprised at the amount of sweetness & almost middle eastern flavor that comes through in this marinade from the orange & spices. Thanks Ben for the great recipe.

Ben suggested serving this with some Spanish rice so I whipped up one that came out quite tasty. We used brown rice because the only white rice we had on hand was jasmine so it was even a little healthy. We cook our rice in a rice cooker but you can do this easily on the stove too.

Spanish Rice

1/2 T olive oil
1/2 c onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 small red pepper, sweet or hot your choice, seeded & chopped
1/2 c brown rice or long grain white rice
1 c chicken broth, or more as needed for the type of rice you are cooking
1 medium tomato, seeded & diced
1/8 t dried oregano

In a small sauté pan heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onions, garlic & red pepper. Sauté until the onions are soft & translucent. (If you are cooking your rice on the stove you can do this in the pot you'll use to cook the rice.)

Place all the remaining ingredients in your rice cooker or pot on the stove. Cook as you would normally cook.

Add salt if needed.

Serves 2