15-Minute Mango Lime Chicken with Rice and Beans

I am thinking about Hector this week. My brother Hector, third of the seven Delgado children, murdered in Bayamon in 2003. He would have been fifty-two this month. Fifty-two, mi amor. The same age Eduardo is now. He would have been a middle-aged man with gray hair and probably a belly because all the Delgado men get bellies, and maybe grandchildren, and maybe a life that looked different from the one he chose, which was the one that ended with a bullet in a parking lot over something the family does not discuss.

I do not talk about Hector often. It is not that I have forgotten — you do not forget a brother, you do not forget the phone call, you do not forget flying to Bayamon for the funeral and sitting in the church where you were baptized and listening to your mother make the sound that mothers make when they bury children, the worst sound in any language. It is that talking about Hector requires opening a door that I keep closed most days because behind that door is not just grief but anger, and the anger is not at Hector, it is at the world that made the choices that Hector made seem reasonable, and that anger has no bottom.

Eduardo knows when I am thinking about Hector. He does not ask. He just sits closer. He poured me cafe tonight without me asking and put his hand on my shoulder and left it there, and that hand on my shoulder said more than twenty minutes of talking would have said. This is why I married this man. Not for the words — Eduardo does not have many words. For the hand on the shoulder. For the knowing.

I made Hector favorite meal tonight: arroz con corned beef. I know, I know — corned beef from a can, mixed with rice and sofrito and tomato sauce. It is not elegant. David would be horrified. But Hector loved it the way children love simple things, and when I make it I can hear him, ten years old, at the table in Bayamon, saying, Carmen, pass the ketchup, because Hector put ketchup on everything including things that should never touch ketchup, and I yelled at him for it then and I would give anything to yell at him for it now.

Called Mami. We did not talk about Hector. We talked about the weather. We talked about Sofia. We talked about nothing, which is how Mami and I talk about Hector — by talking about everything around him, circling the absence the way you circle a hole in the ground. The hole is always there. We just walk around it. Carefully. Together. The food helps. The food always helps.

Arroz con corned beef is Hector’s meal, and I will always make it on the nights he visits me — but this week I found myself at the stove again the next evening, still carrying him, still needing rice the way you need something warm and familiar when grief has been sitting in the room with you. This 15-Minute Mango Lime Chicken with Rice and Beans is not Bayamon, not Mami’s kitchen, not a can of corned beef with ketchup on the side — but it is rice, and rice in our family is never just rice. It is the table. It is the people around it. It is the ones who are not there anymore but somehow still are, if you let yourself feel it while you stir.

Prep Time: 5 min | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 15 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, thinly sliced or pounded thin
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/3 cup fresh or jarred mango, diced (about 1 small mango)
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice (about 1 large lime)
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
1 can (15 oz) black beans, drained and rinsed
2 cups cooked white or brown rice, for serving
Fresh cilantro and lime wedges, for garnish

Instructions

Season the chicken. Pat chicken dry and season both sides with garlic powder, cumin, smoked paprika, salt, and pepper.
Cook the chicken. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken and cook 3—4 minutes per side until golden and cooked through (internal temp 165°F). Remove from pan and set aside.
Make the mango lime sauce. In the same skillet over medium heat, add diced mango, lime juice, honey, and red pepper flakes if using. Stir and cook 1—2 minutes until the mango softens slightly and the sauce comes together.
Warm the beans. Add the drained black beans to the skillet and stir to coat in the sauce. Cook 1—2 minutes until heated through.
Slice and serve. Slice the chicken and nestle it over the rice. Spoon the mango lime beans over the top. Garnish with fresh cilantro and a squeeze of lime.

Nutrition (per serving)

15-Minute Mango Lime Chicken with Rice and Beans — The Rice That Remembers