Recipes Arroz con Pollo with Avocado-Green Pea Salsa 4.0 (5,867) Add your rating & review Using a family recipe, chef Jose Enrique makes this chicken-and-rice recipe with what seems like too much stock, wine and pilsner, but the result is especially moist. Use short-grain rice like Bomba, which absorbs liquid well. Slideshow: One-Bowl Rice Dishes By Jose Enrique Jose Enrique Won Best New Chef At Jose Enrique, San Juan, Puerto Rico Why He’s Amazing Because he’s elevating Puerto Rican cooking, using ingredients from the vast market across the street from his restaurant. The chalkboard menu changes frequently during the evening, based on what the purveyors might bring in during dinner service. Born 1977; San Juan, Puerto Rico Culinary School The Culinary Institute of America (Hyde Park, NY) Background Riche (New Orleans), Bili (Vieques, Puerto Rico), San Juan Water Beach Club (San Juan, Puerto Rico), Café Centro (New York City) Quintessential Dish Crispy fried yellowtail snapper with mashed batata (sweet potato) and papaya-avocado salsa How He Got Into Cooking “A lot of people cook in my family. My grandmothers, my dad, my mom; everyone does a couple of great dishes. My uncle would make Thanksgiving—huge turkeys stuffed with blood sausage. It was always fun.” Beloved Cooking Equipment “My dad made his own Caja China. Picture a metal square oven with the heat coming from the top. He’d cook pork. The first few hours the pork is belly up, so all the fat drips down and confits the belly. Then he flips it over and the skin gets blown up and crispy. Kids fight over it. My dad’s Caja China is on wheels, it’s portable, he’ll set it up anywhere.” Bringing It Home Enrique cooked around the world, in Belgium, France and the US, before returning to the neighborhood where he was born, to open his flagship restaurant. Other Projects In San Juan, Enrique also runs Capital, a popular brasserie, and the coffeehouse Miel. In late 2013, he’ll open a restaurant in the eco-minded El Blok hotel in Vieques.Story of Discovery “Until recently, I’d never been blown away by Puerto Rican food; the dishes I’d tried were always a little heavy and a little bland. But Jose Enrique and his bright, sharp, fresh flavors have changed my mind. At his restaurant—a casual place in an old house where weekend parties erupt on the street outside—he writes his menu on white boards, which allows him to add dishes in the middle of service. When I was there, he listed grilled thin swordfish steaks, from a fish that had been delivered just hours before, pairing it with his outstanding hot sauce made from chiles that he confits in oil for hours with garlic and tomatoes. Blood sausage also appeared on the menu. It was deep black and porky, speckled with chunks of delicious fat. Even better were the blood sausage spring rolls I had another night, baked in crisp spring roll wrappers with a serious swath of cream cheese, which melts into a rich sauce. That’s what a Best New Chef does: takes a cuisine you don’t think you like and turns you into a convert.”—Kate Krader Food & Wine's Editorial Guidelines Updated on September 1, 2014 Print Rate It Share Share Tweet Pin Email Photo: © Con Poulos Active Time: 1 hrs Total Time: 1 hrs 15 mins Yield: 4 Ingredients 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil One 3 1/2-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces Kosher salt Pepper 1 medium onion, minced 2 serrano chiles, seeded and minced 2 garlic cloves, minced 3 plum tomatoes (1 pound), cored and finely diced 1 teaspoon ground achiote (annatto) 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin Small pinch of saffron threads 1 cup dry white wine 3 cups chicken stock 1 cup pilsner or light beer 2 cups Bomba or other short-grain rice 1/2 cup chopped parsley Avocado–Green Pea Salsa, for serving JE Hot Sauce or other hot sauce, for serving Directions Preheat the oven to 400°. In a very large, deep ovenproof skillet, heat the olive oil until shimmering. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Cook skin side down over moderate heat, turning once, until nicely browned, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer to a plate. Add the onion, serranos and garlic to the skillet and season with a generous pinch each of salt and pepper. Cook over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 6 minutes. Add the tomatoes, achiote, cumin and saffron and cook, stirring, until the tomatoes start to break down, about 5 minutes. Add the wine and simmer until slightly reduced, about 3 minutes. Add the stock and beer and bring to a boil. Stir in the rice and return to a boil. Nestle the chicken into the rice and bake uncovered in the lower third of the oven for about 30 minutes, until the liquid is absorbed, the rice is tender and the chicken is cooked through. Transfer the chicken to a plate. Fluff the rice with a fork, then gently fold in the parsley and season with salt and pepper. Return the chicken to the skillet and serve with Avocado–Green Pea Salsa and hot sauce. Suggested Pairing Serve with a medium-bodied Spanish white—something nicely citrusy and versatile with food. Rate it Print