Christmas day, 2020. While we rarely prepare a coma-inducing meal for the holidays, this year’s lunch was even simpler than what we had in years past. I wanted something easy to prepare that was more comfort food than anything else. We needed comforting as it had been such an extraordinarily trying year.
But simple is not always synonymous with plain nor ordinary. This chicken mushroom casserole was cooked with the best ingredients we had access to. The freshest vegetables, homemade bone broth and aromatic jasmine rice.
Most of all, fresh mushrooms went into this dish. Shimeji was used here but button mushrooms will work just as well.
Is jasmine rice a must? The texture of the cooked dish will depend largely on the rice variety used. Short and medium-grain rice are stickier. If you prefer something similar to biryani, go for long-grain rice like Basmati.
Chicken Mushroom Rice Casserole
Ingredients
- 1 kilogram chicken wings cut into drumette and wingette; wing tips set aside for future use
- 2 tablespoons lemon pepper seasoning (store bought)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons butter
- ¼ cup chopped onion
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- ¼ cup chopped bell peppers
- ¼ cup chopped carrot
- ¼ cup thinly sliced celery
- 250 grams fresh mushrooms
- salt
- pepper
- 1 cup rice
- 1 ½ cups chicken bone broth
- chopped parsley to garnish
- lemon wedges to serve
Instructions
- Wipe the chicken dry with paper towels.
- Place the chicken in a bowl, add the lemon pepper seasoning and mix well.
- Cover the bowl and marinate the chicken in the fridge for at least three hours.
- In a heavy frying pan, heat the olive oil and butter.
- Lay the chicken pieces in the oil, skin side down, and brown all sides, turning the pieces over for even cooking. Scoop out the chicken and set aside.
- In the remaining oil, saute the onion, garlic, carrot, bell pepper and celery for a minute.
- Add the mushrooms, sprinkle in half a teaspoon of salt and a quarter teaspoon of pepper. Cook, stirring, until the mushrooms start to soften.
- Pour in the rice and stir to coat every grain with oil.
- Pour in the broth and stir. Taste. If the broth is unseasoned or underseasoned, you will likely need to add a bit of salt and pepper.
- Scatter the browned chicken on top of the rice and vegetables.
- Turn the heat down to LOW, cover the pan and let everything cook together until the rice has soaked up the broth and the chicken is cooked through.
- Sprinkle chopped parsley over the chicken mushroom rice casserole before serving with lemon wedges on the side.
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