Chicken Recado Stew

,Belizean Entree

CHICKEN RECADO STEW

INGREDIENTS

2 small red potatoes
2 pounds boneless chicken breasts
5 tablespoons lime juice
1/4 cup barbeque sauce
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon Jamaican Jerk spice

2 tablespoons red recado (This Belizean spice is found online.)
1 cup chicken broth

1 medium white onion
1 green bell pepper
1 stalk celery
2 stalk green onion.
6 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 1/2 cups brown rice
3 cups water

PREPARATION

Boil potato eighths for about 15 minutes. Cut chicken breasts into bit-sized pieces. Mince onion and green onion and cut each potato into eight bits.

Put chicken bits into mixing bowl. Add lime juice, barbeque sauce, thyme, basil, white pepper, paprika, crushed red pepper, coriander, and Jamaican Jerk spice. (My goodness, I’ve just used up the last of my coriander. Augh! And the Jerk Spice should really be from Belize. I’m no longer spice ready!) Mix the chicken and spices until nearly all of the spices stick to the chicken bits.

Put recado and chicken broth in small bowl. Stir a few times to help the recado dissolve into the broth.

Saute white onion, bell pepper, celery, green onion and garlic in vegetable oil on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes. Add chicken and saute again until the outside of the chicken starts to brown and the inside is completely white. Add recado/chicken broth. Add potatoes, cover, and simmer for another 30 minutes.

Serve with rice (cooked according to instructions on package) to your family, or guests, who will be looking at you with adoration in their eyes.

TIDBITS

1) A thumbless dwarf called El Duende inhabits the Belizean forest and eats children who destroy the wildlife.

2) I wonder, could El Duende develop a taste for lawyers?

3) Belize possesses 900 Mayan sites.

4) If you don’t like ancient stone sites, you’ll be bored at all 900.

5) Coca Cola in Belize is bottled using cane sugar rather than the evil, nasty high-fructose corn syrup. Yay, Belize.

6) A web page about Belize had an advertisement for Alaska Air. Why?

7) In Belize, it is considered rude when coming upon someone for the first time, to greet them using their first name.

8) How on Earth, would you know that person’s first name when first meeting them?

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.