Spanish Rice from a Southern Kitchen

Do you love the rice served at mexican restaurants? I do! Bet you never would have expected a recipe for it to turn up in a vintage southern cookbook! I expected it though, since I saw it often on our table at home. It also seemed to turn up a lot at the neighbor’s houses when I was a kid in Alabama.

Spanish rice was a staple dish in our home. Not a week went by that we didn’t have this as a side for dinner, minus the red pepper and onion.

Mrs Dull’s recipe is on page 298 of “Southern Cooking”. You may be surprised to find that I didn’t substitute brown rice for the white rice so commonly served in the south. I don’t make brown rice anymore. I did many years ago, and found it very hard to locate brown rice that didn’t taste rancid. Brown rice goes bad very quickly and is typically stored too long before it reaches you. You may also be surprised to find that traditionally rice was pounded to remove the bran. Brown rice isn’t really traditional.

Browning the rice ...

So the only modification I’ve made to improve nutrition is to replace half the water with chicken broth.

Spanish Rice Southern Style

Recipe Type: Side Dish
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Yield: 6-8 Servings

Ingredients

• White Rice – 1 Cup
• Diced Tomatoes, canned is ok – 1 Cup
• Onions 2 med. sized
• Red Bell Pepper 2 smallish
• Lard or Butter 2 Tablespoons
• Chicken Broth 1 1/2 Cups
• Hot Water 1 1/2 Cups

Simmering with everything in ...

Tools

• Medium sized skillet
• Knife

Instructions:

• Slice the onions and red peppers into strips.
• Wash rice and brown in hot lard or butter, stirring constantly. Be vigilant, rice burns fairly easily.
• Add the chicken broth and hot water, peppers and onions.
• Add tomatoes, and salt to taste.
• Cook slowly until rice is tender and the water absorbed, about 20 minutes.

And it's done!

And you’re done!

Links to articles on spanish rice

• What?! White Rice is Better than Brown? – The Healthy Home Economist talks about why she doesn’t serve brown rice either.
• Learn more about why more fiber isn’t necessarily the best thing – Fiber Menace

This post is linked at The Healthy Home Economist’s Monday Mania, Hartke is Online’s Weekend Gourmet Carnival, The Prairie Homestead’s Barn Hop, Make Your Own Monday at Nourishing Treasures,Mouthwatering Monday at Southern Fairy Tale, Fat Tuesday at Real Food Forager, Traditional Tuesdays at Cooking Traditional Foods, Real Food Wednesday at Kelly the Kitchen Kop, Gnowfglin’s Simple Thursday, Real Food Freak’s Freaky Friday, Food Renegade’s Fight Back Friday, Real Food Whole Health’s Fresh Bites Friday and Butter Believer’s Sunday School.

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Kathy lives just outside of Austin with her husband of 19 years Barry, youngest son Jake, two cats and about a dozen chickens. While not a Grandma yet, with two grown kids she remains hopeful. Kathy wants a world where everyone has fresh wholesome food and feels that cookin' like a granny woman is the surest way to get there.

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