Baked Chicken with Arroz Sucio.

Lunch time! I've been actually very for the past couple of days with the cleaning of my house and trying to find sometime to breathe but hadn't much to eat except for bits of jerky and a sandwich or two here and there. Luckily, I managed to conjure up another quick recipe which I just had for lunch today which I think you're going to love. The rice I named as arroz sucio (even though translated means dirty rice) isn't normal dirty rice, but came out to be a very delicious mutation. It was purely experimental but turned out to be very delicious.

Ingredients:
[For the arroz sucio]
1.) ~1.5 cups of white rice (I used jasmine since that's the only thing I have in my Asian house)
2.) ~3/4 cup of black beans (I used canned)
3.) ~1/2 to 3/4 of a white onion (I had a very small onion so it was about 3/4ths of a normal onion)
4.) 1 clove of garlic
5.) ~3/4 tbsp of oregano
6.) ~1/2 tbsp of salt
7.) 1 chicken bouillon cube
8.) ~1/2 of a tomate
9.) ~1 cup of chicken stock

[For baked chicken]
1.) chicken drumsticks (I used three)
2.) salt and pepper to taste
3.) ~1/2 tbsp of cayenne pepper
4.) ~1/2 tbsp of paprika
5.) ~3/4 tbsp of dried crushed basil
6.) ~3/4 tbsp of oregano
7.) ~1 tbsp of oil

Directions!
1.) [Baked chicken] Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit and place drumsticks on a baking pan covered in foil. Coat with salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, paprika, basil and oregano. Ensure that the most of the drumstick is coated.

Coat chicken evenly and drizzle with oil. (Oil has not been drizzled in this picture)

2.) Drizzle oil on the chicken (turn and drizzle again) and bake. Bake for 7 minutes and turn them. Bake for another 7 and turn. Turn off oven and leave the chicken inside for about 5 minutes.

Fresh from the oven baked chicken.

3.) [Arroz sucio] Wash the rice and place in a pot (ideally a dutch oven, but unfortunately I didn't have one and used a regular pot).
4.) Dice tomatoes and place in pot. In a food processor (to save you from tears) throw in 1 clove of garlic with the onion and give a rough chop. Mix in with raw rice and tomato. Drain black beans from can and place in pot. Stir the ingredients in the pot to give an even distribution.

Add beans, diced tomatoes, garlic, and onion.

5.) Add about 1 cup of chicken stock (I used the left over chicken stock I had from the tamales) with the bouillon cube. Add oregano, salt, and water. Stir the ingredients.

I added some left over chicken stock I had with a bouillon cube.

6.) Leave the pot on for high heat until most of the water evaporates. One evaporated, keep stirring (ensuring to scrape the bottom) until rice becomes fully soft. You can constantly taste test to see if rice is fully cooked. Remove from heat and serve with the baked chicken.

Final produce of the arroz sucio (please ignore the dirty stove top)

Serve chicken with arroz sucio. Perfect combination!

Afterthoughts: This was a very filling and delicious lunch. However, the rice came out a clumped together. It was a little bit looser, it might have been nicer, but the rice overall was really good. Especially the rice that got stuck to the bottom and became toasted. I had created the rice based on my memories of Spanish rice and Congri (Cuban rice with beans). The chicken was nice and moist even after I left it sitting for a bit.