Arroz con pollo

Adapted from Kitchen Gypsy: Recipe and Stories from a Lifelong Romance with Food by Joanne Weir Spanish Bomba rice is the preferred rice for this dish, which is often called “paella rice.” Anticipating questions, I asked Joanne if Arborio rice would work and she said it might, although it absorbs less liquid than the Bomba rice. According to this article in the San Jose Mercury News, 1 cup of Bomba rice will absorb approximately 3 cups of water whereas Arborio rice will absorb 2 cups. So for those with good math skills, you could do some tinkering if you want to use Arborio rice. Bomba rice is available at The Spanish Table, La Tienda and Amazon. I used round rice (short-grain) from the supermarket, which worked well. In Paris, you can find it at G. Detou. One reader told me that she used Goya Valencia rice, which worked very well, too. To peel fresh tomatoes, make an X with a paring knife in the round end (opposite the stem end) and drop them in a pot of boiling water for about a minute. Remove them and pass them under cool running water for a moment, and the skins will slip off. Cut them in half around the equator and squeeze out the seeds then dice them. For those avoiding wine, substitute an equal amount of water with a good squeeze of fresh lemon juice in it. There’s no substitute for saffron. Some suggest a tiny pinch of ground turmeric for color, but it’s really not the same thing and the flavor is completely different. I suggest hunting some actual saffron down if you can and if cost is an object, only use 1/2 teaspoon of it. If not, you can leave it out. Some Europeans use Spigot spice mix with a small percentage of saffron and there is Bijol, a Cuban condiment, and Sazón, a Mexican one made by Goya, but once again, they only contain a very small amount of actual saffron.