One Pot Autumn Herby Chicken with Butter Toasted Rice
Serves 3 – 4
One pot dishes with herbs are great: all the herby flavours have time to infuse through the dish.
Try this full flavoured chicken dish — for a veggie option replace the chicken with wedges of butternut squash.
- 6 – 8 chicken thighs (with or without bone)
- 2 tbs olive oil
- 2 tbs chopped thyme
- 2 tbs chopped rosemary
- 1 tbs brown sugar
- 50g butter
- 150g orzo pasta
- 270g basmati and wild rice mix
- 250 g button mushrooms, halved if large
- 3 carrots, in 1cm cubes
- 625ml chicken stock
- 250ml white wine
- 2 tbs lemon juice
- 2 tbs chopped flat leaf parsley
- 6 large sage leaves, rolled and finely sliced
- 2 onions, peeled and cut into large chunks
- salt and pepper to taste
- 4 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
Method:
- Put the chicken in a large bowl and sprinkle over 1 tbs of the olive oil, plus the thyme, rosemary, brown sugar and some salt and pepper. Toss together well.
- In a large ovenproof pan, with a lid, heat the remaining oil over a high heat and brown the chicken pieces well on both sides. You may need to do this in 2 batches.
- Reduce the heat to medium low and melt the butter.
- Add the orzo and stir fry until just starting to become golden brown, then add the rice and continue stirring for another 2 minutes.
- Add the carrots and mushrooms and stir fry for a further 2 minutes.
- Remove from the heat and add the wine, hot stock and a little more salt and pepper, using a spatula to stir up any browned bits on the bottom of the pan.
- Place the chicken on top of the rice and sprinkle over the lemon juice. Scatter over the parsley, sage and garlic and arrange the onion pieces on top.
- Cover and bake at 180ºC / Gas mark 5 for 45 minutes.
- Remove from the oven. The stock should all have been absorbed.
- Add another 75 ml of stock and return to the oven for a further 10 minutes, uncovered to allow the chicken to crisp up.
- Serve with a fresh green vegetable like sprouting broccoli or a crisp green salad.