Chicken Pilaf (as promised)

It sounded soo easy, boil a chicken, add rice and viola! tasty new dish for dinner.   Hah. Two and a half hours later, I did indeed have a tasty dinner but whoosh I did not plan to spend quite so much time working on it.  To make matters worse, boy liked it.  So it's on the re-make list - for a weekend. 

Tavuklu Pilav, broccoli and "Bloomin' Herb Bread"

Tavuklu Pilav

recipe from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden (again, I know! They're all so tasty I just can't help it!)

Ingredients:

3 1/2 - 4 pound chicken

Salt and Pepper 

2 Bay leaves

1 sprig thyme or oregano

2 cups long grain rice

Like I said, sounds easy right?  And most of all there isn't any cumin or cinnamon, those wonderful spices that the hubby is soo sick of.   I didn't have a whole chicken handy so I just used a whole bone-in chicken breast. 

 Place the whole chicken in a pot of water and cover completely. Season with salt and pepper, 2 bay leaves and the sprig, I used thyme. 

There really is a chicken in there! Bring water to a boil and simmer, covered for about an hour and the chicken is tender.  While my chicken was cooking I made some "bloomin' Herb Bread"  that I found here.  I was worried that my bread wasn't going to be done in time to eat with dinner.   It wasn't a problem. 

 Once your chicken is tender, remove from the pan and let cool until you can handle it.  If you used a whole chicken, cut it into pieces to serve.  Feel free to remove skin and bones.  I removed the skin before I put it in to boil.  Cut small pieces to be added into the rice.  Since I used a breast instead of a whole chicken, I roughly chopped and removed all the meat from the bones.  Keep the chicken in broth to keep moist.  

  This step is what took forever.  Measure the remaining broth.  You need 4 1/2 cups.  I had about 10 cups and had to "reduce by vigorous boiling."  Roden adds that if you have less than 4 1/2 cups, add water - how can you boil a whole chicken with less than 4 1/2 cups??  I don't get it.   It took me about an hour to get close to 4 1/2 cups.  I gave up when I had about 5 1/2 and dumped a cup into the sink.  We were hungry!  

  See my broth-marks?  Once you have 4 1/2 cups, remove 1 1/2 and set aside.  Add the chicken pieces, or in my case all the chicken back to the broth and add the rice.  Bring to a boil and simmer, covered and undisturbed, for 20 minutes.  J was super hungry by now and went to stir/check on my progress when there was about 5 minutes left.  It was nice to yell at him to leave it "undisturbed!"  Sometimes, its the little things :)

 Remember my bread?  It turned out great!

After 20 minutes my rice was done, but it was also really sticking to the pan.  Not sure what happened.  Regardless, it was time to eat! 

Doesn't that look tasty? and worth all that trouble?  

To serve, (if you used the whole chicken), reheat the large pieces and pile on top of rice.  Use the reserved broth as a sauce.