Chicken and Rice for People Who Can't Be Trusted With Perishable Ingredients

Photo by MChe Lee on Unsplash

 Hi, yeah, hi. I know it's been approximately forever since I got a post up, and it may be a while yet. My
post on Grave Peril Chapter 26 is well underway, but it's been research intensive and is shaping up to be very long, as I had to summarize an entire story from the Bible and discuss the foreshadowing implied by each of its elements. So, while I'm finishing that up, here is the recipe for the meal I make more often than any other by an actual order of magnitude. This is writing related inasmuch as it is excellent for people who are distractible in the short term, scattered in the long term, and perpetually broke. The only two absolutely essential ingredients have been common offerings at every food pantry I've ever visited, and cost $3.50 for two batches at my local Walmart, even under current greedflation prices. It requires perhaps five minutes of concerted effort, two of which you can spend sitting on the kitchen floor, and dirties a maximum of three dishes and three utensils, counting those used to eat, none of which are pots or pans. Once it's going, it will be ready in 20-30 minutes, but you can forget about it for up to three hours before it suffers any observable ill effects, and eight before any portion of it is likely to be rendered inedible or hard to clean. I use a 2 cup Pyrex measuring cup and a tiny, pink, two cup capacity rice cooker for this. Alterations and substitutions are discussed below, but I would recommend doing your measuring in a microwave safe container.

Ingredients

1 cup white rice (dry)

1 4.5 oz can of chicken (same size as normal tuna can)

1 cube chicken bullion

1 cup water

Poultry seasoning

Directions

1. Measure out the rice and put it in the rice cooker.
2. Measure out 1 cup of water and drop in the bullion cube. 
3. Put the water in the microwave and start it for 2:30 minutes on high. 
4. Open the can of chicken. You can drain it or not, I usually don't. 
5. Put the chicken in the rice cooker. 
6. Add 2 generous pinches of poultry seasoning to the chicken and rice, or sprinkle until the entire surface looks lightly coated. 
7. Using the rice tool that came with the rice cooker, or another nonmetal implement, mix until combined thoroughly, and break up some of the bigger chunks of chicken, especially if you're planning to share.
8. When the microwave finishes, remove water. 
9. Stir until bullion is completely dissolved. If it proves stubborn, crush it against the side of the cup. 
10. Pour the chicken broth into the rice cooker. 
11. Start the rice cooker. 

My rice cooker has two settings - cook, and warm. If yours is more complicated, use whatever settings you would ordinarily use with the same quantity of plain white rice. If you have a 10 cup capacity rice cooker, I would advise doubling the recipe, as the larger heating element can cause it to dry out rather quickly otherwise. This recipe can comfortably be doubled or more by maintaining the ratio of 1 cup of water - 1 bullion cube - 1 cup of rice - 1 can of chicken. You can also use one big can of chicken for every two cups of rice. Brown rice may be substituted for white, but use 1.5 cups of water instead. (It's up to you whether you want to use 1 bullion cube, use two, or split one in half so you can use 1.5). If you have liquid chicken broth, by all means use that - it's better. It's also actually fine with plain water if you don't have bullion cubes or broth. The poultry seasoning is optional - that's my most recent addition, and you'll be fine without it. If you have leftover cooked chicken lying around, you can use about 4-5 oz of that instead of canned chicken. If you have canned (or leftover) beef, you can use that, with beef or chicken broth (liquid or started from bullion), but I haven't settled on a seasoning I like for this version. This should work fine with tuna, with dashi or chicken broth, but I haven't tried it and I would tentatively suggest lemon pepper in place of poultry seasoning. You could probably use tofu or mushrooms, and vegetable or mushroom broth, maybe with a little soy sauce, but I haven't tried that either. For microwavable rice, skip the addition of the chicken until you've zapped it for the prescribed time and it inevitably comes out undercooked, then stir it in before returning the mixture to the microwave. Feel free to play around with the seasonings if you want. 

Yes, this can be done on a stovetop. I wouldn't recommend it, because the "fire and forget" nature of the recipe is mostly lost when it risks burning if left to cook too long, but it's still an inexpensive meal with a little bit of protein and a lot of flexibility, so sure. If you already have a way of cooking stovetop rice that consistently produces good results, I have no desire whatsoever to challenge that, and you'd know better than I would when to add the chicken in that process. If not, read on.

 You must respect the rice. The process for reliably creating steamed rice is not complex, but it demands a little bit of precision and a lot of not fucking around. I'm assuming short or medium grain rice here - I can't help you with long grain.

1. Measure out 1 cup of rice and 2 cups of water or chicken broth. (Rice to water ratio should remain 1:2 if you increase recipe volume).
2. Combine in a saucepan. 
3. Open the chicken and drain it. 
4. Cook on high until the rice and liquid have just started to boil. 
5. Reduce temperature to low and quickly stir in the chicken. 
6. Cover, and allow to cook on low for 20 minutes.  Do not lift the lid. Do. Not. Lift. The. Lid. DO NOT LIFT THE LID. The rice is being steamed and for that to go as intended the steam must remain in the pot. Do you understand?
   
7. Remove from heat promptly. You may now lift the lid. 

Whether you use the rice cooker or the stove, you can serve the chicken and rice however you usually eat white rice, or really however you want. I usually use like, 3 tablespoons of butter and 4 tablespoons of lemon juice for half the rice. My partner uses salt, pepper, and a normal amount of butter. I keep meaning to try it with sriracha mayo but then forgetting. It's pretty good with just butter. Like, one of the major functions of this for me is it's almost no effort over plain white rice, but there's some cheap animal protein in there. 

Yeah, that's my recipe, the thing I eat All The Time. Honestly it feels a bit obvious spelling it out, but the transition from "Yeah, we'll have plain buttered rice again" to this took months of fussing around and having new thoughts about it, so perhaps I might spare someone else the same experimentation. I'm working on the Chapter 26 reread post, I really am. Until I finish it (and transcribe it, eeg), be gay, do crimes, and read all the things!