Chicken and rice is a soulful combination, with rich traditions all over the world. I love a one-pot meal, and there are lots of good ways to cook chicken and rice together. Me being a Cajun, jambalaya comes to mind. But something that’s always nagged at me when doing a chicken and rice dish is the shame it is to not end up with crispy skin on the chicken. Often you spend time browning the skin and getting it crispy at the outset, only to lose that effect by finishing the chicken either covered with a lid or submerged in liquid (or both) with the rice.
So. I’ve been tinkering with a technique that does a pretty good job of solving this problem. The trick is to bake the chicken, on top of the rice, in the oven. That way, both the chicken and rice are cooked through in the same pot, thus still allowing the chicken to flavor the rice, as it also develops and keeps that crispy skin, because the skin is exposed to the hot oven, not covered with a lid or submerged in liquid. You get the added bonus of the roasted flavor and crispy bits on the edge of the rice that only an oven can produce.
Important to note: I use chicken thighs in this recipe, because they have a lot more flavor than white meat, and they’re much more forgiving – you have to try pretty hard to overcook chicken thighs, unlike breasts. And with this recipe, you do need some time in the oven for the rice to cook. As always, bone-in will give the dish more flavor, but boneless thighs are good too, if you can find them with skin on.
One way to think about cooking is to cross reference flavor profiles with cooking concepts. For example, I mostly developed this “oven-baked chicken and rice” concept with a Cajun flavor profile, which for me entails some type of Cajun seasoning (like Tony Chachere’s), bay leaves, and maybe thyme; a veggie combo of onion, bell pepper, celery, and garlic; and garnishes of Louisiana-style hot sauce, green onions, and parsley. This recipe, on the other hand, is the same technique, but with a Thai-inspired taste. So the seasoning I use here is soy sauce, fish sauce, Sriracha, peanut butter, coconut milk, and lime zest; the veg is onion, red bell pepper, jalapeno, garlic, and ginger; and the garnishes are lime juice and cilantro. I’m sure there are other ingredients that would make this recipe more authentically Thai, but frankly, my closest grocery store doesn’t have a great Asian food section, and I’m always in favor of using what’s at hand, so I’m happy to keep this recipe more streamlined. The point is – feel free to cook with whatever flavors you want. I can imagine Mexican, Indian, Italian, French, and Spanish versions of this concept.
P.S. Fish sauce is ubiquitous in southeast Asian cuisine – it gives dishes a funky, possibly umami(?) kick. But as Jacques Pepin would say, be parsimonious with it. A little bit goes a long way, and generosity here could leave your meal smelling like a dirty sock.
P.P.S. My girlfriend just gave me a really nice 3.5 quart enameled cast iron braising pan, which I used for this dish. It’s twelve inches across, which turned out to be the perfect size - big enough to hold all the ingredients, but shallow enough so that the oven browns the chicken skin. Any heavy, oven-proof 12-inch pan should work fine. —Kyle Bienvenu
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