Arroz Con Pollo (Pressure Cooker)
This is a comfort food originating in Spain and is common in Latin America as well. There is as many ways to prepare this as there are shades of blue. This was originally written as pressure cooking the rice, then cooking the chicken. I am in Thailand, everyone has a rice cooker so I am sticking with that, and for folks in the states, many have rice cookers or can cook rice in a pot on the stove, so I am not going to add the rice part here. On my to cook list. I will be using my 9½ quart stove top pressure cooker. Follow all the safety precautions for your model of pressure cooker.
Equipment
- Pressure Cooker
- Rice Cooker
Ingredients
- 2 kilos chicken pieces, quarters separated perfect, (4 lb)
- paprika, as needed
- salt and pepper, as needed
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 brown onions, diced
- 1 clove garlic, smashed and minced
- ¼ teaspoon chili powder, or crushed red pepper flakes
- ¼ teaspoon saffron threads, 6-7 threads
- 1 bay leaf
- 1¾ cups chicken broth, fresh or from powder
- 2 cups frozen peas, thawed
- 1 cup green olives with pimento, sliced
- 1 tomato, chopped, or use 3-4 roma chopped
- 3-4 cups hot cooked rice, use a rice cooker or saucepan on the stove
Instructions
- Season the chicken with salt, pepper, and paprika as desired. With the lid off your pressure cooker, heat the oil, when hot, brown the chicken, working in batches, set browned chicken aside.
- Then add the onion and garlic to the cooker, saute until the onion is softened.
- Add the chicken back to the cooker, sprinkle with the chili powder, saffron, and add the bay leaf and chicken broth.
- Place the lid on and lock, add the weight (jiggler), bring up the heat to high, when the jiggler starts to move and vent pressure, reduce the heat to low or medium low to maintain pressure release. Start timing for 12 minutes.
- When 12 minutes have passed, turn off the heat and move to an unused burner and allow a natural pressure release. When it is safe to open the pressure cooker, meaning it has vented to atmosphere and no pressure remains inside, open and remove chicken to a serving tray.
- Add the rice, peas, tomato, and olives to the cooker and stir together to heat through, can simmer on low heat for a few minutes if needed.
- Serve the chicken with rice on the side. Enjoy.
Notes
Chicken will cost about 52 Baht/kilo for quarters. For 4 servings, this is about 41 cents per serving. Great value. I will verify the amount of chicken and procedures for sure with this recipe.
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