I was flipping through one of Julia’s recipe books a few weeks ago and spotted a recipe for a side dish of rice that was made in a similar way to paella or risotto. Onions and garlic fried off, then rice then some tomatoes and a whole bunch of vegetables simmered until the rice is cooked. Pretty easy but on an Australian standard a little different to how we’d usually prepare rice. This made me giggle because when I was over at Mr Mexico’s place he made us a wonderful dinner of Poblano Mole Chicken and Rice – better known as Chocolate Chili Chicken. The chicken was simply prepared with fresh rosemary and slivers of garlic pushed into slits cut into the chicken breast then oven roasted slowly and carefully until just cooked. This was then slathered in Poblano Mole, a thick, dark, rich sauce with many ingredients including sesame seeds, spices, bread, chili and Mexican Chocolate. YUM! The rice was simmered and stirred with the wonderful colour of tomatoes running through with added carrots, and capsicum. I asked Mr Mexico how he would describe this rice dish…
“Is it like a paella?”
“Uh, nah… it’s just how I do rice”
Brilliant.
And here it was step-by-step in a recipe book. I’ve now made this a few times, trying all sorts of ingredients and spices, including an indian-style one with tumeric. So this is my recipe, but play around with it and try different styles. It’s a great side dish for meat as it has the carbs and vegetables combined.
Ingredients:
1 cup long-grain rice
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic (I like garlic!)
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 tin 4 bean mix, drained and rinsed
Vegetables – chopped. I just added capsicum to this one
1/2 tsp Paprika
Salt
Pepper
Method
1. Fry off the garlic and onion in a little olive oil until brown
2. Add the rice and fry for a few minutes
3. Add the can of tomatoes and a couple of cups of water, and all the other ingredients.
4. Pop a lid on it and stir INFREQUENTLY (easier than risotto!)
5. Add more water if the rice needs to cook for a little longer
6. Serve.
OH MAN and you KNOW I’m gonna say this is going to taste spectacular with Cholula! 
Because it does!
Terrific work! This is the type of information that should be shared around the web. Shame on the search engines for not positioning this post higher!