Brown Rice with Corn – Quickie Version

Arroz con Maíz, or Rice with Corn, is a very typical Puerto Rican dish. My granddad loved it very much… it was something my grandma would fix for the family quite often.

The traditional way to make it is to cook the rice with tomato sauce, sofrito and the corn, all together. It’s traditionally made in a “caldero” or large pot, but as you know me, I can make it in a rice cooker. My grad school roommate, Michelle, was a big fan of my Arroz con Maíz. I used to make it for her and leave it in the rice cooker for her to eat when she was back from classes in the afternoon.

And even though making rice in a rice cooker is fairly simple… sometimes I don’t plan too much ahead to make food. I tend to go with what I am craving at the moment. For that same reason, I have developed a method to get almost the same flavors of the traditional Arroz con Maíz but in a quick easy way using left-over rice.

Brown Rice, as easy as it is to make in a rice cooker, it just takes time. It’s not something that you just pull together as easy as boiling some pasta or making a sandwich. To me, it’s very easy to just make a cup or two of plain brown rice in the morning, right after I am done with breakfast, and then by lunch time figure out what I can have with it. Sometimes I have made a quick stir-fry, sometimes I stuff some peppers… sometimes I make this quick Brown Rice with Corn recipe.

BROWN RICE with CORN – QUICKIE VERSION

2 cups of cooked brown rice

½ medium yellow onion, diced

1 tsp sofrito

1 cup frozen corn kernels

Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

Garlic Salt – optional

1. In a large skillet over medium heat, drizzle a small amount of olive oil and add the sofrito and diced onions. Cook the onions for a few minutes until they begin to soften.
2. Add the frozen corn kernels… no need to thaw then first. Just add them straight from the bag. Mix well with the onions so the corn cooks and the flavors mix. Season with salt and pepper, or the garlic salt if using. If you have a lid, cover the skillet and let the corn cook for a few minutes.

3.  Add the cooked rice to the skillet. Mix well and cover again. The steam in the skillet will soften the rice again if it’s hardened from being in the fridge. Allow cooking for a couple of minutes and turn the stove off and leave it there for the residual heat to finish heating the rice, making it fluffy again.

You’re done… now this is the perfect accompaniment to your favorite main course. I personally like to have it AS THE main course with a drizzle of ketchup on top and a salad on the side. Some sweet plantains or even some tostones – plantain or breadfruit – would work well with this too.

Tags: brown rice, corn, food, onion, vegetarian