Arroz con Pavo

Tuesday 3 January

We wanted something spicy for the coldest night of this (rather warm) winter.  Holt was thinking of turkey mole, as we still have lots of Christmas leftovers, but that takes two days.  Instead, we did a turkey take on arroz con pollo.

We started with a sofrito or as Lydia calls it, a pestata: first a clove of garlic (with salt - a great trick), then a stick of celery, then half a carrot, each whizzed up in the same robot-coupe.  We chopped a half onion separately, because onion tends to liquefy in the robot-coupe.   Sautéed the onion in a pan with a couple of rashers of chopped bacon, then added the pestata. 

After a few minutes, we whizzed up a handful of our bag-ripened, now rather wizened, garden tomatoes with one chilpotle pepper in adobo sauce.  Added turkey stock to the tomato mixture until it came up to 2 cups plus, and poured it in the pan with the pestata, a cupful of rice, and some salt.  Raised the temperature until boiling, then covered and kept on a low simmer.  We added a couple of handfuls of slivered turkey from the Christmas bird toward the end. 

It took about 35 minutes for the rice to be tender, and some salt for the dish to be savory, warm spiciness.