Cooking Rice in your Chamba Pot

For 1 cup of rice, use 1-1/4 cup liquid. (For 2 cups rice, use 2-1/4).

Sauté the rice in a little olive oil or butter in the pot for a couple of minutes. Add the broth, which should be at or above room temp. (I will sometimes microwave it for about a minute.)

Bring to a boil, cover and reduce to a simmer for 10 minutes. After ten minutes, check and see if most of the water has been absorbed. If not, cook rice another 2-5 minutes until it has.

Turn off the heat; stir the rice with a wooden spoon to fluff it up. Take a clean dish towel, wrap it around the lid tucking the corners up on top, and place back on the pot. Leave for another 10-15 minutes to steam.

The towel does two things: it creates a better seal, and it also absorbs the steam that rises so that it doesn't condense on the lid and drip back down on the rice, which would make it sticky. I have kept rice in the pot up to 45 minutes and it still stays warm.

Recipe courtesy of Stuart Cristol-Deman and Toque Blanche

Ajiaco


(Bogota's Chicken and Potato Soup)
Hector Varela's Recipe

Ingredients:
2 Chicken breasts
Garlic
Onion
Chicken stock
12 small yellow potatoes, cut in halves
1 bunch of scallions
2 ears of corn
8 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into small slices
1 bunch of cilantro
8 tblsp. of *GUASCAS
1 cup heavy cream
2 tblsp. capers, drained
2 avocados, peeled. Pitted and thinly sliced
Salt

Recipe

The night before marinate the chicken breasts with garlic, onion and salt. In heavy 4 liter casserole, put the breasts, add water, cover and cook until the chicken is tender. Transfer the chicken to a platter. Remove the skin from the chicken and discard. Cut the chicken breasts into strips. Cook the yellow potatoes in the casserole with the chicken stock until they start to disintegrate. Add more chicken stock taste. At this point the soup should be thick and fairly smooth. Add the bunch of scallions, the bunch of cilantro, the sliced potoates, the guascas, and the corn. When cooked remove the bunch of cilantro and the bunch of scallions. Serve the chicken in soup bowls and pour the soup into the bowls. Pour three tablespoons of cream and 1 teaspoon of chopped capers on each bowl. Float the sliced avocado on top.

*NOTE: you definitely have to use guascas if you want to call your soup Ajiaco. It gives the soup its characteristic flavor! Most latin-american markets carry this herb.