Chicken Fried Rice
Okay, yum. Just yum. No small talk, no beating around the bush, here’s my take on a great recipe from Brooke Burke of modernmom.com, Fried Rice.
INGREDIENTS
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts or 8 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
4 cups white rice
chicken or beef broth
olive oil
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
2 carrots, sliced
1/2 bag frozen peas
1/2 bag frozen corn
salt and pepper
butter
soy sauce or Maggi (or both)
your favourite sauces
Now, keep in mind that 4 cups of rice and 4 chicken breasts and all of the other goodies yields a LOT of food so don’t be alarmed if your frying pan isn’t big enough at the end. Grab your BIGGEST one, and be ready for (yummy) leftovers.
DIRECTIONS
1. In a 450 degree oven, bake 4 skinless chicken breasts for 20-30 minutes.
2. Just after putting chicken in the oven, start your rice – I use a rice cooker so it’s super easy. I also like to use chicken or beef broth instead of water, to start infusing flavour immediately.
3. Chop your veggies, get everything ready to roll.
4. Take chicken out of oven, with lid off of the cooker so it can cool a bit for chopping soon.
5. Saute onion and garlic in olive oil.
6. Soon after, like when the yummy fragrance starts to hit your nose and the onions are starting to get translucent, add the sliced carrots into the pan. Let them get warmed up and mingle with the onions and garlic.
7. The carrots are of course pretty hard, so continue to saute for a few minutes and then add in the frozen peas and corn. Stir it up so they can get acquainted with each other and warmed through.
8. While that’s cooking up nice-nice, chop the chicken into nice bite-sized pieces.
9. When the chicken has all been chopped, the veggies should all be cooked and pretty hot, so it’s time to push them aside to half of the pan, and then crack your eggs onto the hot, empty part of the pan. Immediately mix in with the veggies, and cook the eggs. (Heat should be around medium throughout.)
10. Now is where the fun really starts! Add in the chicken and the rice, and mix it up. If you’re like me you not only underestimated how much this recipe would yield, but you also have NO frying pan large enough to contain it all! If this is the case, enlist your husband’s help as I did, to dump it all into a large mixing bowl, as seen here in this flash of a photo. Hubby is fast!
11. Spoon about half of your concoction back into the frying pan and stir it up over fairly high heat, with a few pats of butter, and start to add in your soy sauce or Maggi. I used both…I like to introduce cultures to each other – here we have Polish and Asian. I had salted and peppered the chicken and the rice when it was cooking, so didn’t add any more here but you can do so to taste.
12. Dish this beauty up and voila! SO good.
You might find you want more soy sauce, or you can try different sauces like hubby did (hoisin, and hot sauce)
…I am more of a fried rice purist, and stuck to Maggi.
This dish would be equally amazing as vegetarian/meatless, or with beef or shrimp. We will definitely make it again!
Live like you mean it,
Tamara
