One-Pot Chicken and Brown Rice
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Everyday Food, January/February 2010
- Prep Time 15 minutes
- Total Time 1 hour, 5 minutes
- Yield Serves 4
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Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (6 to 8 ounces each)
- Coarse salt and ground pepper
- 1 large yellow onion, cut into 8 wedges
- 2 celery stalks, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
- 2 medium carrots, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 cup brown rice
Directions
- In a large Dutch oven or heavy pot, heat oil over medium-high. Season chicken with salt and pepper and place, skin side down, in pot. Cook until golden brown on both sides, 10 to 12 minutes total. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon fat from pot; add onion and celery. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook 20 minutes.
- Add carrots, bay leaf, and 1 3/4 cups water; stir in rice and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low. Cover and cook until rice absorbs almost all the liquid, 40 to 45 minutes. Let stand, covered, for 10 minutes before serving.
Cook's Note
Cooking the chicken, onion, and celery together creates a flavorful base for the rice to simmer in.
After reading reviews, I was a little concerned about making this recipe. However, I made a few little changes and it worked out VERY well. Instead of cooking the onions and celery for 20 min before adding the carrots, I added all the veggies at the same time and only cooked for about 2 min before adding the rice, bay leaf and water. I also didn't take out any oil. This made the rice have a somewhat creamy texture. I also added some garlic powder for a bit more flavor. Salt and pepper at table.
Somewhat bland. The brown rice takes forever to cook, so everything else is like mush. Very disappointed.
I enjoyed making and eating this. Next time, I would use a more flavorful onion (red) as I prefer the taste of onions. Yes, the veggies did get a bit soft because of the cook time for the brown rice (maybe they can be added about 20 minutes before the rice is done next time), but the dish was flavorful, and the chicken fell off the bone. The rice in my dish didn't come out 'crunchy' - it cooked fine. Brown rice can take a bit getting used to. I would make this again.
I fancy myself a pretty good cook, and was pretty impressed with myself after browning the chicken thighs quite nicely. But after that, this recipe totally failed. I never could get the rice to cook all the way. It cooked for more than an hour and was still crunchy. The celery was completely mushy and inedible. I wish you all better luck with this than I had. For my part, I extracted the chicken to make chicken salad and threw away the rest.
I use chicken breasts instead of chicken thighs, but other than that, I follow the recipe pretty closely. This is great winter comfort food! http://meganskitchenadventures.blogspot.com/2011/02/one-pot-chicken-and-...