Oh, Hey, That Worked.

[bzarcher]

Dinner tonight ended up being a "Something that can sit for a bit" situation, so I ended up finding a nice simple recipie and stuck with it.

Not bad at all, but I now have ideas on what to do for next time to make it MUCH BETTER.

Since samiblackmire wanted to see more of my kitchen-fu anyhow, I thought I'd post both the original, and my PLANS for next time.



The Original

Chicken breasts, thawed (I used 3 - one for each person eating - this part's kinda adjustable. The cookbook actually says "Chicken Breasts or one roasting chicken")
1 c. uncooked rice
1 c. water
1 can Cream of Mushroom or Cream of Chicken Soup
1 tbsp. butter

Hardware:
Casserole Dish
Tinfoil
Mixing bowl

Line your casserole dish (I used a 13x9) with tinfoil and pre-heat the oven to 350.

Spread your rice over the bottom of the lined dish, then place the chicken on top of the rice. (I admit - I cheated here. I used 3/4 c of white rice, and mixed in 1/4 c. of wild rice - gave it a nice lift.) In your mixing bowl, combine the water and soup until you have it beaten into a good consistency and the soup doesn't want to lump. Pour the mixture into the casserole dish, dot your butter around the chicken, and cover with foil. Drop the dish into the oven for one and a half hours. (YMMV - I used the meat thermometer, and I wasn't really satisfied until about 1 hour 45.) Once the chicken and rice have cooked through, remove the covering foil and use the broiler on High for 5-10 minutes to brown the top of the dish, and serve.

Nothing too fancy. Perfectly servicable, and not half bad.

But here's my plan...

Chicken breasts, thawed
3/4 c. uncooked white rice
1/4 c. uncooked wild rice
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
1/2 tsp. paprika
3/4 c. water
1 can Cream of Mushroom
1 tbsp. butter

Hardware:
Casserole Dish
Tinfoil
Mixing bowl

OK, we start like before. Line dish, add rice, plop in the chicken.

Mix up the water and soup (I'm going to reduce the water a bit because it got a little too thin, I think) and once the soup's mixed, add the black pepper and garlic. Stir them in fairly well, and pour over the chicken and rice. Dot the butter, then sprinkle the paprika over the chicken breasts. Cover, and into the oven.

Bake at 350 until the chicken's temprature hits 155, and then go to the broiler - give it 10 minutes or 170 degrees, whichever comes first. Pull the chicken and let it rest about 5 minutes for carryover to finish the job, and serve.

The differences aren't anything super dramatic, but I think it'll punch the dish up from "Oh, shit, I need something with simple prep that I can ignore" to "Ooo, that's good, let's make that again later."

Comments

[snowspinner.livejournal.com]

Only thing I'd note is that chicken is safe at 165. I'd scale the oven down to 150 and pull from the broiler at 160, therefore, so as to get yourself a bit more juiciness in the chicken. (Since you're right now looking at probably 175 for the chicken, which is a fair deal further than chicken is happiest going)

The only question is whether the rice would finish in that timeframe.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Really? I always thought it was 175. I'll keep that in mind for next time as well.

The rice honestly looked pretty thoroughly cooked when I checked on the chicken at an hour and a half, which was right about at 150 - I bet it'd be OK.

[snowspinner.livejournal.com]

Well, it comes down to who you trust - Alton Brown, or the USDA.

Personally, I trust Alton Brown, as his number is based on the temperature when the relevant bacteria bites it, whereas the USDA is based on the findings of a committee or twenty.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

I bow to the wisdom of the Brown my God.

[dasubergeek.livejournal.com]

Mmmmm... chicken hotdish. If I weren't so fucking sick of chicken (as we munch our way through 17 freezer-burnt pounds of it in prep for moving) I'd really be into that.

That said, you can tell when chicken is done by piercing it -- clear juices mean it's done to a turn. Pink juices mean keep cooking. No juices means it's shoe leather. It doesn't have to be tough to be done.

Use cream of celery soup if you want a different flavour profile. I don't love cream of mushroom. Or make your own -- what Campbell's sells can be replicated with white sauce (roux and milk) and whatever flavour base you want.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Ooof. I totally understand the chicken burnout - we have about 3 more pounds of breasts and wings in the freezer that I just don't want to think about right now. (So much easier before the deep fryer broke. Oh, well.)

The cream base actually came from Meijer - I was surprised. It had a bit more flavor and a lot more actual mushroom in it than I expected.

Cream of celery doesn't sound bad either, but part of me wonders about just using the roux and celery salt now, too.

Definently not a bad set of choices to have. :D