A whole chicken was the one and only item left in our freezer this morning–a clear reminder that we had to go either to the wet market or the supermarket later in the day. I was actually dreaming of lechon kawali but it would have to wait. As it was a week ago when I had to time to thaw and marinate a whole chicken, I decided to go ahead and boil the chicken while still partially frozen. To make cooking faster, I pressure cooked the whole chicken with a whole onion, a whole garlic, some peppercorns and a liberal amount of salt. Thirty minutes later, the chicken went into the oven for browning. Meanwhile, I strained the broth and used it took the rice. What you see in the photo that looks like chinese style fried rice is actually steamed rice.
Cooking the rice is quite another story. It’s actually a meatless and seafood-less kind of paella. What I did was to cook the rice as though I were making paella. When it was cooked, I served it with individual portions of the well-browned chicken. It was actually great. It made the rice more flavorful and colorful. It was also a good way of serving vegetables. Instead of the usual salad on the side or a second entree with vegetables, the vegetables went into the rice.
Most important of all, I wasted nothing. The cooking of the chicken was facilitated by boiling it first. The broth was used to cook the rice. The nutrients of the vegetables did not go into discarded liquid but were infused with the rice.
Ingredients :
3 cups of uncooked long grain rice
6-8 cups of well-seasoned broth (I used chicken broth)
1 tbsp. of finely minced garlic
1/4 c. of finely chopped onions
1/4 c. of diced pimientoes
3/4 c. of diced carrots
3/4 c. of sweet peas
1/4 c. of tomato paste
1 tbsp. of olive oil
1 tbsp. of butter
Cooking procedure :
Wash the rice and drain well.
Heat the butter and olive oil together in a thick-bottomed sauce pan or casserole. Saute the garlic and onions. Add the carrots, pimientoes and peas and cook for about a minute. Add the rice and cook, stirring for another minute. Pour in six cups of broth and the tomato paste*. Bring to a boil. Stir once, then set the heat to the lowest setting, cover the sauce pan or casserole and let the rice cook in the broth for about 20 to 30 minutes.
If all of the broth has been absorbed before the rice is still fully cooked, pour in more broth and stir the rice lightly.
*Updated on March 1, 2005 at 6.15 p.m.
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