I apologize once again for quoting Daddy Yankee, which, I realize, is almost as lyrical and inspired as quoting, oh, say, Ke$ha. But I really can’t help it, because it’s been several years since I tried to make Puerto-Rican-style arroz con gandules, or yellow rice with green pigeon peas, and I think I’m finally on the right track. And I didn’t even have to throw any SPAM in it! Hoo freakin’ rah.
Forget that white rice drowned in butter and salt that you love so much (well, if you’re from my family, you like everything covered in magnificent melted milk solids). Rican-style rice has some serious color and flavor, and is guaranteed to be a crowd-pleaser. Plus the gandules are actually GOOD FOR YOU. What the heck are these funky little peas? Just like lentils, peas, beans and other legumes, they are high in protein and probably have the added benefit of inducing flatulence. But I don’t really know about that… I mean, I’m just not sure… ’cause that never happens to me…
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These fresh pigeon peas are beautiful, but I just get mine out of a can. I prefer to use a brand called El Jibarito, not because I am really sure that the gandules are any better quality, but because it just sounds so dang poetic. Oh, and I think that they are about $0.30 cheaper than Goya, and to top it off there is a cute little picture of this dude on the label:
He, as the label suggests, is a jíbaro, or a farmer who works the hills of lovely Puerto Rico, a romanticized figure who in recent times has overcome his “hick” connotations and has been embraced as an icon of Puerto Rican culture. Personally, I’d rather be putting the essence of P.R. into my arroz con gandules than just dumping in a can of Goya pigeon peas. In my book, poetry wins, every time.
I first attempted making arroz con gandules in high school, when a Nuyorican friend of mine tried to teach me. There was spam involved, and all kinds of unecessary seasonings, like ketchup and oregano, and a spoon-balancing secret trick to telling when you had the perfect rice-to-agua ratio. Coming from a measuring-cups-and-spoons sort of family, I was always unsure of this technique, and I never could quite get my spoon to stand up straight.
Ever since then, every time I have had the real stuff, I’ve always thought how my high school attempts were So. Very. Awful. The rice was vaguely the right color, but the texture was always too mushy, and the flavor never quite flavorful enough. After years of trouble-shooting (wrong seasonings, no olive oil, wrong kind of rice, too much water, etc… etc…) and subsequently meeting an arroz con gandules pro (a lovely abuela who despite her protests that “cooking really isn’t her thing,” makes some slammin’ Puerto Rican rice), I think I’ve finally got the basics down. While I definitely could use some practice and my quantities need a bit of adjustment, I’m fairly confident that I’ve got at least a passable arroz con gandules.
As I see it, here are the keys to a successful ACG:
1) El caldero. The caldero is a cast aluminum cooking pot with a lid, and if you are unfortunate enough to not have purchased the special one with the “cool-to-the-touch” handles, handles that will scald the skin off of your fingertips when you mistakenly try to lift the lid or grab the handle to serve the rice. Hot pads or mitts are a must. The caldero is key because, for one thing, it makes some crazy good pegao (a d-less pronunciation of the word pegado, Spanish for stuck, ’cause this stuff is stuck onto that pot like Crazy Glue (insert Daddy Yankee’s horrible dirty dancing metaphor here). Something about the way the pot heats way the heck up crisps up the rice on the bottom of the pot, creating a crisp layer that adds a fun textural toastiness to the dish.
2) El arroz. Medium grain Goya rice seems to do the trick. Rinse rinse rinse that rice in the caldero until the water runs clear, drain, then add enough water to just cover up the rice, plus a tad more (no spoon balancing necessary). Gracias, Ms. Midwest, por este “tip.”
3) El aceite de oliva. A nice Spanish olive oil will do wonders for this rice. Once you’ve added the water, add a “generous” swirl of olive oil, plus a pinch of salt.
4) El sofrito. You could get all crazy and make sofrito, an intensely flavored sauce of tomatoes, garlic, and onion, but why do this when you can buy it at ShopRite for a dollar? Get the Goya brand, and add a nice healthy scoop of it to your rice, and stir it all up. I also added a little bit of recaíto, a cilantro-based sauce, which I’m not sure is necessary, but certainly didn’t hurt the flavor at all.
5) El sazón. This is the least wholesome ingredient that I used, and I decided to add it in part because I had an ancient pack of it left over from the afore-mentioned high school attempts at preparing this dish. Most likely, Goya’s Sazón seasoning is just yellow-colored MSG, and you should probably skip it, but whatever… it’s a bunch of powdered seasonings, yellow #5, and annato, an orange seed that releases a nice color into the rice and is WAY cheaper than saffron. If you buy the seeds, you can infuse them into the olive oil and then use that instead of this wack powdered nonsense. Perhaps this will be my next project.
6) Duh, los gandules. I’ve already established why you should use El Jibarito brand. Cute picture. Channeling the spirit of P.R., bla bla bla. Ha ha. Rinse and drain a can of gandules, and dump them in with the rice.
This should pretty much do the trick. Pop it on high heat until it boils, stir, cover, reduce the heat to medium-low, and let it cook for about 20 minutes.
In honor of finally getting some pegao in my rice, and for your listening pleasure, I’ll be providing some merengue, a dance that should be enjoyed bien pegaito. Lucky for you, and probably for me, my censors talked me out of posting a link to a video of hideously offensive, manic, booty-shaking reggaetón, so instead you’ll have to make do with some ridiculously cheesy footage from Elvis Crespo.
¡Buen provecho!
Constance, what's cooking? 