welcome friends welcome back to the
kitchen today we are going to make
what is essentially a chicken kabsa um
i'm doing a modified version of a
chicken kapsa this is a dish that i've
eaten in a lot of different restaurants
and what i found is that there's chicken
and rice cooked together in one pot with
a bunch of flavorful spices
and the spices
often contain a lot of the same things
but each chef makes it a little bit
differently and adds their own special
touch to it
and i have to imagine that
that every home cook does the same thing
they add their own little special touch
to it and the same with the vegetables
it will always have tomatoes
it will always have onion
but it doesn't always have pepper and it
doesn't always have parsley
now let's get right into it so first
thing i've got here are some cardamom
pods pods cardamom pods
i've got some cumin
coriander
pepper
turmeric
paprika
and cloves
now some of those were already ground
and some of them weren't so i'm just
gonna
mash them up in a mortar and pestle
make sure they're all completely ground
up
there is one ingredient
that pretty much every chicken cups i've
had
had in it
that i cook with it's a it's a dried
lime
and you can find a bunch of recipes on
the channel going back where i've used
dried limes and i really like them in
all of those dishes but in this dish
i just don't like it
i don't i there's something about it in
this dish that i just don't like so i'm
not someone who will
suffer
to make something authentic if i don't
like it in it i'll just leave it out but
i would suggest that if you've never had
dried lime
you might want to give it a shot in this
dish so i'm going to salt
in the chicken
now
i've got this spice mix
i'm only going to use about half of it
with the chicken so i'm going to
sprinkle some in i'll turn the chicken
over and i'll sprinkle some more in the
rest i'm going to save until we put the
rice in the pot give this a mix
best way is with your hands but i'm
working alone today so
i'm going to use
so i'm going to use tongs um but i would
suggest that you definitely get in there
with your hands and get it all rubbed in
and make sure that it's good
okay
don't cover it all don't worry we're
gonna be cooking it in the pot the
flavor is gonna permeate through so i'm
going to heat up this heavy cast iron
this is a brazier
it has a heavy lid you need something
with a heavy tight sealing lid because
we're going to be cooking rice in this
pot and you want to control evaporation
so i'm going to put some oil in
this is grape grape seed oil
ghee
would be
traditional ghee is probably what you
should use i'm going to put this on sort
of a medium high heat
get this hot and then we'll brown off
these chicken thighs
okay the chicken is looking good you
just want to
get a little bit of browning and color
on the outside of the chicken
the biggest part of this process though
is getting some flavor in the bottom of
the pan
chicken browning
all of those spices
toasted in the bottom of the pan that's
really what you're looking for
so
all right so in the bottom of this pan
is some great flavor now we're going to
put in a diced up red pepper
and a couple of onions
and we'll just saute that off a little
bit
scrape up the fond on the bottom of the
pan there
and a metal spoon in an enameled pan
not gonna hurt it i've had this pan for
i don't know 15 years
i use a metal spoon and metal tongs in
it all the time
same with all of my other enameled cast
iron
i've never had a problem i've never had
any chipping i've never had any cracking
i've never had any marks
so i don't know why people tell you that
but i've never had a problem so i'm
gonna keep using them
now
those have softened up a little bit so
i've got some garlic cloves and garlic
cloves are one of those things that are
to taste so if you really like garlic
put in a bunch if you don't like garlic
all you don't like garlic all that much
maybe only put in one or two
i'm gonna put in three because for my
tastes in this dish that's about right
for me
so just crush those in
and i've got a cinnamon stick that goes
in and i've got two bay leaves now these
are indian bay leaves they're a slightly
different shape
than the turkish bay leaves that you
normally see
a slightly different flavor profile but
close enough
close enough that i use both
almost interchangeably
okay
that's smelling really good
now
the rest of the spice mix that goes in
i'm going to sprinkle in a little bit of
salt
give this a stir
put in a couple of diced tomatoes
i had some fresh tomatoes that i diced
up uh
canned tomatoes are just fine uh
wonderful in this dish just plop the
whole can in the juice and everything
so give that a bit of a stir
i've got this on kind of a medium high
heat
at this point i'm going to put in
basmati rice
i think basmati rice is the rice that
you want to use for this dish but again
use what you have
really use what you have but i think
basmati is going to give you
the best texture
that you're looking for with this but a
jasmine rice
is going to bring an incredible amount
of flavor and really good flavor as well
so stir that in
and we'll get the rice coated with
the oil and all of the spice mixture
now
chicken stock
parsley
i'll give that another bit of a stir
and then the chicken goes back on top
now once i get the chicken in here i'm
going to put the cover on and stick it
in the oven you could continue to cook
it on your stovetop
bring it to a boil and then reduce
temperature to a simmer keep it covered
and go for you know about 20 or 25
minutes until the rice is cooked the
chicken
should be cooked at the same point but i
would always check that with the
thermometer and just make sure
but
i have my oven preheated today i had
something else cooking in there this
morning it was at 4 25
so i've just left it on
and i'm gonna put this in the oven for
25 minutes
[Music]
because it's a little bit easier for me
i can then
clean up this mess in the kitchen
and
and cook something else so into the oven
425 i'd say
20 to 30 minutes i check it at the 15
minute point and see how it looks
and depending on the lid
on your on your braiser or the pot or
whatever it is you're cooking it with
you may need to add a little bit more
liquid you have to be an active
participant
oh here glenn let me give you a hand
there oh thank you this is me i'm
helping
hey glenn hey friends
chicken and rice
i like chicken and rice look at that
that's a good looking
dish there's so many versions of chicken
and rice okay i'm going to sprinkle a
little bit of fresh parsley on top oh
with such flourish well try oh
i'll break that up a little bit okay
that was destined not to work and
so we'll get a scoop of rice
that's very pretty and a piece of
chicken
oh and there's the bay leaf there you go
get rid of that
it's gone
all right
now
oh knife for the chicken let's see
so this is
pardon me can you reach that okay yep
okay
there's some big flavor in this rice i
would imagine
it's really nice very very very smooth
flavor yeah
put a little bit too much chicken stock
in one of the things that
i
realize as i make this is
the tomatoes
and the pepper and all of those liquids
all add liquids and it's hard to
decipher how much liquid is there
so as a general rule of thumb
i should have cut back on the liquid at
the beginning
because the rice is a little bit mushy
for my liking
still really good just a little bit
mushy
sometimes you just have to accept those
surprises yeah
and as you make the dish over and over
and over again you'll kind of get used
to that
now
chicken
it's a braised chicken
yep so it should be moist
what a mess
forget it
here we go
one pan chicken
so easy not a whole lot that went into
that finish it in the oven watch your
liquids
play around with some of the vegetables
that you put in it play around with the
spices go on the internet
look at dozens of different recipes for
this and then sort of tailor
the spicing to the flavors that you like
well that's it i mean chicken and rice
there's so many versions of it yeah
i mean we do
we do a basic version of this
with a more canadian flair and we put
the wild rice in it yes and that's
fantastic i really like that so you can
play with this a lot
thanks for stopping by see you again
soon
you