I remember how this dish evolved from a rich red, paprika dish with chicken pieces to a light risotto style meal with breast pieces of chicken.

Me and my brother remember the old one wistfully, like some mythical half-remembered dream of our childhood.

Then my mum got wise. Perhaps we all got chubby. Who knows. But she realised that the old version was very fatty and unnecessarily oily. Delicious yes, but oily.

So she developed it into a light and fairly healthy meal that ticks all the boxes on the nutritional check list.

This dish is light and healthy. Tasty and makes great left overs.

Chicken and Rice Recipe

Ingredients:

chicken breast meat

1 – 1 1/2 cups long grain rice

1 L chicken stock (or vegetable stock, or powder/cubes etc) plus extra water

1 diced onion

1 clove of garlic (minced)

2 sticks of diced celery

1 diced green capsicum (or pepper)

frozen peas and corn

Method:

In a large frying pan, brown the pieces of chicken. (See Notes on Recipe for size suggestion)

Set those pieces aside.

In a bit of oil, saute the onion, garlic and celery.

When they have turned transparent, add the rice  and stir for about a minute.

Then add half of the stock and the vegetables and the chicken.

Give it a stir and put the lid on and simmer for as long as it takes to cook the rice through.

Keep stiring and add more stock and then water when it dries out.

Notes on the Recipe

You can use any type of chicken in this recipe. But the skinless breast is the most low in fat.

But because it will go dry and rubbery if you cook it too long, cut the pieces large. So they take longer to cook, and to reduce the chances of them becoming dry.

If you are really concerned about the chicken drying out, you can remove them from the rice once they are cooked, or add them a little while after you add the final ingredients.

I like to fry off a bit of sherry or white wine in the onions and rice mixture before I add the stock. A little extra flavour.

If you use water instead of stock (which is what I usually do…never seem to have chicken stock in the cupboard) I use a bit of Vegeta to add flavour.

(Don’t panic about that weird black thing in the corner. I check it out and it’s just the camera strap. I still have a lot to learn in the art of photography apparently. Annie Leibovitz doesn’t have to worry about her job just yet).