Peruvian Chicken

I’m not sure this is the real name of this recipe. It’s what my sister called it. Or maybe I named it that. Not sure really. All I know is she gave me the recipe from a coworker of hers that wowed the office with it. Here is what I know:

For the rice you need:
roughly 1/4 cup broken angel hair pasta (or egg noodles)
2 cups rice
4 cups chicken broth (or water)
1 tbsp salt (we couldn’t figure out if this was the real measurement. My sister used this much and said it wasn’t too salty. I put in 1 tsp. which definitely wasn’t enough. You can experiment to your taste. However, next time I will put in more than 1 tsp.)

Melt two tablespoons of butter in a pan

Fry the noodles in the butter until golden brown

Add rice, salt, and chicken broth. Bring to a boil, cover and turn down to low heat. Simmer until rice absorbs all the liquid. (If you can make Rice-A-Roni, you can make this rice!)

Meanwhile, let your assistants coat your desired number of chicken breasts liberally with Krazy seasoning. That is what the recipe calls for, but I couldn’t find it. My sister found it in her little town of 100 people, but I couldn’t find it in my major metropolitan area which perplexes me and makes me think I don’t know what I’m looking for. But luckily she mentioned Krazy is a Mediterranean spice so I picked up McCormick’s version. And let the kids go at it.

And make sure you have a good supervisor

Heat some butter (do you see a theme here?) together with some olive oil in a pan. This is called ‘mixing your fats’. Is that right, JaeTill? I think I saw it somewhere on the Food Network. The olive oil has a high heat tolerance, much higher than butter, so it keeps the butter (i.e., flavor) from burning.

Take your seasoned chicken breast and cook them in your fats. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Cook until done.

While your chicken is cooking, microwave 1/2 cup of pine nuts and 1/2 cup sliced almonds for 3-5 minutes. Stirring at two and four minutes. And yes, you read that right – you can toast nuts in a microwave. I’ve toasted almonds in my oven, but they have a high oil content… I caught them on fire. Fireman are very nice, but I don’t want to see them again. So now I use the microwave.

And, you can grab some frozen veggies from your freezer and thaw and cook those too. On the stove top or in the microwave, whichever you prefer. I happened to have garden candy… otherwise known as white corn off a cob and frozen, just waiting for me to thaw it out with some salt and butter. Um, yum.

Layer the rice, nuts and chicken on your plate and accompany with your vegetable. And, mom, I’m sorry this is such an ugly meal. It’s mostly one color and my mom hates that. It’s not as nutritional. I know it should’ve been broccoli, but I didn’t have broccoli. Or green beans for that matter. And no one complained about the garden candy, believe me.

And my second daughter, who tends to pick at her meal, wolfed down this chicken and rice in a matter of minutes. It could’ve been the promise of ice cream or the fact dinner was an hour later than usual. But I’m giving the chicken the benefit of the doubt since the rest of the family gave it two thumbs up.

I am linking up to Tempt My Tummy Tuesday and Tasty Tuesdays. Check them out for more recipe ideas.