Arroz (rice) imperial cubano

Arroz imperial Cubano.
Among the most popular recipes of Cuban cuisine there is a very special dish: Cuban imperial rice.
It is customary to prepare this dish especially when there is something to celebrate... such as a birthday for example 😉.
The idea is to make a sort of cake or lasagna, using rice as a base. Although the ingredients can be varied and the combinations are different, chicken, cheese and mayonnaise are always present.
Ingredients:
-1 kg. of chicken
-800g. rice
-100g. tomato paste (optional)
-200g. cheese (parmesan or other)
-200g. peppers (cut into small cubes)
-100g. white onions (cut into small dice)
-100g. green peas
-6 to 8 tablespoons of mayonnaise (if needed)
-6 cloves of garlic
-Oil (olive or other)
-1 pinch of salt
-1 pinch of pepper
-1 pinch of bijol or turmeric (saffron or other food coloring)
Preparation:
Place the chicken in a saucepan with water to cook over low heat, and with garlic until softened.
Remove from the heat and separate the broth, then shred the chicken using two forks.
In another saucepan, put the (olive) oil, pepper and onion. Sauté over moderate heat until tender. Now add the tomato paste and chicken and cook for 10 minutes. Add the peas and continue cooking for another 5 minutes. Finally add a pinch of salt and pepper. Let cool then mix everything with the mayonnaise.
It is time to add the rice to the chicken broth in proportional quantities, with the bijol to give the typical yellow color. Cover the pan and let the rice cook normally.
Take a separate pan and distribute a little mayonnaise all over the bottom. Then put a layer of rice, followed by a layer of the chicken mayonnaise mixture, and after another layer of rice and press with a spatula, to give it firmness and uniformity. You can put as many layers of ingredients as possible. Finally, sprinkle with parmesan or other.
Ideally, it should be baked in the oven for 10-15 minutes until the cheese is golden brown. However, I personally don't recommend it because the preparation includes mayonnaise, which is an emulsifying sauce that melts into pure fats when heated, and we don't want that on our rice.
So one minute in a very hot oven will be enough to melt the cheese. No more.
Believe me, if the preparation is refrigerated overnight, the result is surprisingly exquisite and very well suited to enduring the heat of the Cuban summer.
This dish can also be prepared with ham, shrimp or tuna. In this case, each ingredient will be cooked separately and, after cooling, will be mixed individually with the mayonnaise. Then, the assembly of the plate would be done by combining the different layers with the rice.
You can garnish with red pepper or herb leaves like parsley or mint, and even olives or capers.
Serve in the form of wedges, as if it were precisely a cake.
I assure you that imperial rice tastes delicious and would be very popular among Cubans. Be sure to try it at home, or better yet, come and try it here in Cuba.