Grilled Chicken with Chimichurri Sauce and Spanish Rice

The other day I had the urge to make a couple of things, one was s dish using Chimichurri as a sauce and, my version of Spanish rice to share with my Latino friends.

The Spanish Rice
I wanted to try a quickie recipe version I'd seen somewhere online. Any way, a quick trip to the market to get the ingredients that I wanted to use, which included Chorizo, and black beans for the rice and nice fresh bunch of parsely for the Chimichurri sauce. Before preparing the veggies for the dish, I made two cups of arroz. (This is the quickie version of the Spanish rice, where presumably you've already made rice and have left overs from the night before.) Starting with a mirepoix of celery, onions and peppers (red and green) getting them wilted and seasoned, I added the chorizo to the mix which I had also cooked and diced earlier. To this mixture, I added one (12oz.) can of zesty diced tomatoes with peppers and an 8oz can of tomato sauce.At this point I also added the black beans, rinsed and drained. I let this reduce for about 5 minutes an added the cooked rice to this mix, stirred well and incorporated into the tomato sauce. I reduced the heat and let the rice absorb the sauce

The Chimichurri Sauce
Since I do not have a food processor, this sauce is all manually chopped, and maybe a bit coarse for some but for me, I like the added texture. Chopping a bunch of parsley as finely as I had the patience for, I added three good sized cloves of freshly peeled garlic, also chopped as finely as I could, along with quarter of a Vidalia onion. To this I slowly added a quarter cup of extra virgin olive oil and about two tablespoons of red wine vinegar. Whisked together with a half a lemon squeezed, and seasoned with rock salt and coarse black pepper, viola! my version of Chimichurri Sauce.

I seasoned the four chicken breast on both sides with a mixture of salt, pepper, chili powder, a mixture of herbs and slathered them with a coating of the Cimichurri sauce before grilling. Came out pretty well, at least I enjoyed it.

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