As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve started to see a pattern as I research recipes. In addition to seeing a lot of peanut butter used in African dishes, I’ve also come to learn that just about every region of the world has some version of chicken with rice. In Central and South America many countries have their own special version of Arroz Con Pollo. And I’ve seen varieties of this throughout my search for African recipes. That being said, I really love chicken and rice dishes and while I’ve already cooked a few as part of this effort, I’m sure there will be more along the way but I strive to find different ways of cooking the dish and different flavors.

For Belize (in addition to making a bunch of un-BELIZEably bad jokes, I made their version of chicken and rice: Stewed Chicken with Rice and Beans. I used skin-on chicken thighs for this dish and the end result, while flavorful, lacked the deep color of some of the photos of the recipes I looked at. Perhaps I needed to brown the chicken a bit longer but I can say, this was incredibly tender chicken.

Stewed Chicken Recipe: http://globaltableadventure.com/recipe/stew-chicken-from-belize/

Beans and Rice Recipe: https://explorecookeat.com/belizean-rice-and-beans/

Overall Level of Effort: 2

Skill Level: Beginner

Would Make It Again? No

Additional Notes: It’s possible that some of the challenge I had with the color/flavor of this dish was that I didn’t have an authentic red recado/Achiote paste. I did try to make a quick one from a recipe I saw online, but I think it was lacking something special. I try my best to find some of the specialized ingredients when I can and this might have been a situation where the quick fix just didn’t measure up to the real thing.