Nonetheless, there are things I miss. Stuff I would make regularly when I was first living on my own, in between the baked chicken breasts and scrambled eggs.

I’m talking, specifically, about Rice a Roni Spanish Rice. It was great: You got rice. You got Roni. You got a flavor pack, which had actual green things in it. Best of all, the instructions on the box called for actual tomato to be added, in perhaps a cheap, yet in my case effective, way of convincing me of the boxes’ benevolent nature.

But it’s only been over the last couple of years that I’ve learned to make this kind of rice from scratch. It took a couple of discoveries, like paella, as well as the development of a modicum of technique.

I make this stuff all the time and finally decided to codify the recipe.

The method of cooking this dish is basically a pilaf. Butter is melted in a saucepan along with onions. Rice is browned slightly and coated with the fat before the cooking liquid – in this case chicken broth, is introduced. The dish is then brought to a boil, covered, and finished in an oven.

I like traditional rice pilaf for the texture. As counterintuitive as this seemed to me, a small amount of fat encapsulates each grain and prevents the rice from sticking together, resulting in a rich yet fluffy final product. Also, the fact that the rice isn’t really stirred means that most of the starch stays put (rather than being dislodged into the liquid), which, again, makes for a nice texture.

But I like my Spanish rice to have a slightly less fluffy composition. I like something more akin to paella than a traditional pilaf. I like the individual grains to have a degree of chew and flavor, but I also like them to hold each other together a bit – not something as dense as a rice pudding, but a balance, which I think this recipe strikes quite effectively.

The key is choosing the rice carefully. For this dish, I use medium grain rice, which gives off more starch when cooked, resulting in a “richer” final product. Not that there is anything wrong with risotto, but the texture of say, basmati rice, just isn’t appropriate for this.

It’s amazing how much flavor you can squeeze out of simple ingredients. You have the sweet richness of the butter and onion balanced against the tang of the tomato and lime, and the earthiness of the cumin.

Anyway:

SPANISH RICE

1 C Medium Gain Rice. (I use Goya, which you can obtain at good grocery stores in the “Mexican” section)
2 C Chicken Broth (stock, whatever)
3 T Butter.
½ C Onion, diced
1 Vine-Ripened or 2 Roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped
2 cloves of garlic (or more!), chopped
1 t Cumin
¼ t dried chipotle or chile powder (optional but tasty)
3 T Tomato Paste
Kosher Salt
Cilantro, for garnish
Lime Wedges

Equipment Note: You need an oven-safe saucepan with a lid.

Preheat oven to 350

Melt the butter over medium-low heat in a ten-inch saucepan. When the butter has completely melted, add the onion and a pinch of salt. Sweat the onions until they turn soften, about five minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute or two. Slowly add the diced tomato. Turn up the heat to medium high here because the tomato will typically suck a lot of heat out of the pan. When the tomatoes are softened, slowly add the rice, a little bit at a time, stirring carefully so that the grains are coated with the buttery goodness. Add the dried spices. Add the broth, slowly. Stir in the tomato paste until it has incorporated evenly into the broth (which should be a nice red color). Bring to a full boil.

Stir the rice a couple of times, slap on the lid. Put the pan in the oven for twenty minutes.

Extract the pan from the oven carefully, because, uuhh, it’s hot. Let it set, covered, for another ten.

Serve with lime wedges and minced cilantro.

Serves four to six as a side dish, or two to three as a main dish.