My best friend’s mom, Coco, is an amazing cook. She’s Puerto Rican-American and her specialty is a traditional rice dish called arroz con gandules—this translates to rice with pigeon peas. Although you may think a rice dish that features peas named after a pesky bird may not sound very appetizing, think again!

The dish has a nice balance of rice to peas (maybe three parts rice to one part peas); it is flavorfully seasoned with sofrito (a cooked paste made from garlic, onions, tomatoes, and bell peppers), culantro (an herb that is related to cilantro, but has a 4-6” leaves and has a more pronounced flavor), cumin, bay leaf, coriander and a variety of other spices; and every few forkfuls or so you’ll find a manzanilla green olive, which comes as a bit of a salty palate relief against all the other large, earthy flavors in the rice.

The dish is similar to paella, a better-known Spanish rice dish that is baked in a large cast iron pan, in that it is heavily seasoned and has lots of non-rice surprises mixed in. However, unlike most traditional paella preparations, arroz con gandules is vegetarian. It makes for a great side dish, but is definitely hearty enough to serve as a main course (or at least that is how I eat it, because once I find out that Coco has made a pot, I can’t fathom eating anything else!).

I’d share the recipe, but Coco insists that it is a family secret…

Filed Under: Culinary History, Food Talk