Mexico

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Rice In Mexican Cooking

Rice is the most commonly eaten cereal crop in the world, being the mainstay of the diet in much of east and southeast Asia, the Caribbean and central and South America. Of course, rice is eaten in literally every part of the world, including North America. Rice is grown in the United States and more apropos to this article, Mexico. After corn, rice is the most important grain in Mexican cuisine and there are too many different Mexican rice recipes to list in the space we have here.

Even though it may seem like rice has always been there, it is one of the more recent ingredients used in Mexican cuisine, having arrived in the new world with Spanish and Portuguese colonists, along with beef, cheese and old world spices like cumin - all of which are now part and parcel of the country’s culinary heritage. Many of Mexico’s traditional rice recipes date back to shortly after the first rice crops were grown in the country.

Classic Mexican Rice Recipes

Arroz con pollo is both a classic Mexican rice dish and a classic Mexican chicken dish. From the Spanish for “rice with chicken,” this is the Mexican take on this timeless comfort food and it is an incredibly satisfying one. This is one Mexican rice recipe you may want to try making at home - it is a great change of pace from the familiar American version with canned soup.

This dish is a Mexican adaptation of a Spanish recipe, with some ingredients, which are native to the Americas. Tomatoes are a common ingredient in arroz con pollo, as is oregano - and in Mexico, cooks prefer to use the stronger-flavored Mexican oregano instead of Greek oregano as cooks would use in Europe. While the Spanish influence is undeniable, these small changes have made this very much a Mexican rice recipe.

Spanish Cuisine In The New World

After the Spanish began to grow rice in Mexico, it quickly became a hit, working its way into dishes, which combined old and new ingredients, with some of the results now known as authentic Mexican rice recipes. One dish, which we think of as Spanish as can be is paella, but a look at the ingredients commonly, used in this dish reveal something very interesting. For example, tomato is a common ingredient; a new world ingredient, which must inevitably have found its way into a pot of rice and seafood long before a cook in Valencia, thought to do the same.

Of course, even Spanish paella happens to have a slight Mexican accent due to the inclusion of tomatoes and quite often, bell peppers - both of which are native to the Americas and were brought back to Europe from the new world! Needless to say, this is also a very popular Mexican rice dish with many regional variations being found throughout Mexico, especially in coastal regions of the country.

Lightly seasoned Mexican rice is another of the better-known Mexican rice recipes. This rice is served as a complement to a wide variety of Mexican dishes, particularly beans. This is a dish, which is quite similar to Spanish rice; and just as with paella, this rice actually contains some new world ingredients.

An essential staple of the Mexican pantry and of the country’s cuisine, rice has assumed the same status in Mexico as it holds in much of the outside world. Rice is just one example of an ingredient, which came over to Mexico from the old world and was made into a part of something new and different. Mexican rice recipes may not have as long of a history in the Mexican culinary tradition as say, salsa, but it is clearly an addition to Mexican food for which the country’s cuisine is richer.

Mexican food might conjure up images of hot crunchy tacos, richly flavorful enchiladas, crunchy nachos with melted cheese and jalapeo slices on top or even cleverly spiced Mexican casseroles. Traditional Mexican food is both healthy and easy to make, even for beginner cooks, so why not try out a Mexican dish?

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