Roast Chicken and Rice
Feb 17th, 2009 | By Peter Minakis | Category: Greek, Main, Poultry, Recipes, Rice, Roasting, Side
Don’t let the title fool you. The focus of tonight’s dish is rice. I can remember having roast chicken and rice from as early as when I was watching cartoons each morning, there was no remote TV control and children actually played in parks.
Fast forward to 2009, people communicate electronically, people are forgetting or skipping a meal and the age of all media being offered through one delivery channel has come.
Food triggers memories for me. Rice reminds me of when our family would have a Sunday dinner, one of which would be roast chicken and rice. To this day, it’s still one of favourite meals, be it weekend or weeknights.
In the traditional Greek way, a whole chicken or segmented one is roasted with rice and stock and the end result is one of the most delicious servings of rice one has ever had.
Today I’m offering you my family’s preferred way of preparing rice..in the oven. No stovetop action here – it’s all the oven. The same rice to liquid ratios apply here but there’s something about baking rice that transforms it into something special.
The other adavantage to baking your rice is that quite often one gets some of those crispy kernels of rice hugging the baking dish’s wall and don’t forget the crispy ones on the top. The contrast of soft rice with some crunchy kernels reminds one of similar sensation when enjoying a properly made paella.
This recipe is ideal for a weeknight meal. Pre-heat the oven, throw in your chicken and rice in the oven, set the table and make a salad and have some face time with kids. The ratio is the constant, the wild card is the flavouring.
You may choose to have plain white rice, in this instance I diced up some red peppers. Another favourite addition is sliced mushrooms. Fancy some peas?
Next time your serving rice to your family or guests, forget the stovetop method, baked rice is where it’s at.
Here’s a family favourite….roast chicken with rice and red peppers.
Roast Chicken and Rice
(serves 4)
4 quarter chickens
sea salt
black pepper
garlic powder
2 tsp. of lemon thyme
Baked Rice with Red Peppers
(serves 4)
1 cup of long grain rice, rinsed
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1/4 cup olive oil
2 1/2 cups of hot chicken or vegetable stock
salt and pepper to taste
Pre-heated 400F oven
- Pre-heat your oven to 400F. In the meantime, rinse and pat-dry your pieces of chicken. Season with salt, pepper, garlic powder and lemon thyme and place on a baking tray.
- After you’ve rinsed your rice, place it a casserole dish and add the olive oil, diced red peppers and hot stock. Stir the contents so that no lumping of rice occurs. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
- Place the tray with the chicken and and the casserole with the rice and bake uncovered for about 45 minutes. Your rice is ready when all the liquid has evaporated. Remove from the oven and fluff with a fork. Cover and keep warm until your chicken is cooked.
- Allow the chicken to rest for about 5 minutes before serving. Serve each quarter with a mound of rice and a seasonal salad.
If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://kalofagas.ca then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at truenorth67 AT gmail DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author. © 2007-2009 Peter Minakis
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Peter, I love this dish! Thanks for sharing a treasured family recipe. I’ll be making this real soon — maybe even tonight!
We eat chicken and rice quite often too. Love the idea of adding diced bell pepper to the rice, I usually add it to the chicken
.
I would fancy some peas in your delicious baked rice! Can’t wait to try it, crunch bits and all!!
I should know better than to come here before lunch! That is really exciting – rice in the oven, oh I’ve heard about it but never tried it. I had it for the first time this summer (in Canada of all places) but then forgot about it until now. Thanks for jogging the memory!
I have just made this dish for our dinner. It was wonderful – thank you
baking a rice is new to me, but it looks wonderful. Lovely meal.
That picture of the rack o lamb is awesome. Thanks for describing the day. nice to know about traditions of other places.
The chicken certainly looks great, and I’m all for trying baked rice, but I most enjoyed your small dose of nostalgia.
And wouldn’t it be great if kids still played outside when they got home from school like we did? *Sigh*
This looks simple and delicious!
I’ll have to give this a try – looks delish!
This looks soo delicious .. i never tried making baked rice before .. but its a must try now for me … Laila .. http://limeandlemon.wordpress.com/
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