Arroz a la Mexicana

Arroz a la mexicana lives in central Mexico. The Bajio, Ciudad de México, Jalisco, Guanajuato, Querétaro, Hidalgo, the kitchens of the altiplano where the comida corrida arrives in three courses and the second one is always rice. Every household has a pot. Every cook has an opinion about the ratio.

The red comes from tomato, not from chile. This is one of the most common things foreigners get wrong about Mexican rice. There is no paprika, no annatto, no food coloring. You blend ripe Roma tomatoes with onion and garlic, you measure it with chicken broth to exactly twice the volume of your rice, and that is the liquid. The color belongs to the fruit.

The technique is two moves and both matter. First you toast the rice in oil until the grains turn pale gold and start to sing. This is what keeps the grains separate. Skip it and you have wet rice. Second, you do not stir after the liquid goes in. Stirring breaks the grain and releases starch and you end up with paste. Cover the pot, lower the heat, leave it alone. Saber cocinar es saber vivir, and part of knowing how to live is knowing when to stop touching the food.

My mother made this rice three times a week for thirty years. The pot was a battered aluminum cazuela she brought from Jalisco when she moved to Colonia Roma. She measured the rice with a coffee cup and the liquid with the same cup, twice. No scale, no timer. She knew it was done when the kitchen smelled the way it was supposed to smell. The notebook has the recipe written in pencil on a page near the front, with a note in the margin: 'no se revuelve.' Do not stir. She underlined it twice.