Are you suffering from left-over hang 0ver?
Well, I was, after Christmas!! I find it boring to eat too much left-overs, or too much of the same thing in consecutive days. We had turkey for Christmas and all the stuffing and trimmings. I did not prepare it, my other half did and all were shop bought.
After Christmas, we had guests on Boxing day and we had turkey again. We then freeze the turkey meat and made soup out of the bones. Most of the meat were picked out. The larger pieces were wrapped up and portioned out and frozen. The smaller pieces went to the soup.
After the bones were boiled to make stock, the bones were picked again and there was quite substantial bits of meat left in them. so this went to the dog, Polly. Polly usually has a good Sunday as well when we do Sunday roast as she gets to eat all the lovely meat!!
The soup was a mixed vegetable soup, with some of the turkey meat.
I planned to cook the left-over turkey in a week or two. However, my other half decided make curry with half of the left over turkey meat. The curry paste was from a jar, Indian Curry. It did not taste good at all. Furthermore, it was just too soon to have turkey again!!! What a hangover!!
This year I bought some cranberries and I made sausage with fresh cranberries as a side but we ended up eating it as a main. There were some remain so I made Chicken and Cranberries Baked Rice. I have made this before, some time last year, but at that time I could not find cranberries and substituted it with red currants. It did not taste good as the currants were a bit hard.
So this time I decided to give it a try since. It turns out to be quite tasty and very pretty, with the red cranberries scattered here and there in the rice. The sweetness of the rice complements the tartness of the berries.
This is an easy and healthy dish.
Chicken and Cranberry Baked Rice
Quick Info:
Serves: 4
Difficulty: easy
Cost: £
Time: 40 mins
Ingredients:
500g Skinless and boneless chicken thighs
1tbsp Ginger juice
75g Fresh cranberries
5 cloves Garlic, finely chopped
350g Jasmine rice or long grain rice -washed and drained
3 Spring onions – chopped
4 tbps Sweet hoisin sauce
100ml Chinese red wine- optional ( you can replace it with extra chicken stock)
800ml Chicken stock
Salt
White pepper
Calorie control spray
Method
- Turn the oven on to gas Mk 5 or 190C
- Cut the chicken thigh into 2 pieces each so that they are all of almost the same size. Marinade the chicken pieces with the ginger juice and salt and pepper.
- Heat a non-stick frying pan and spray with calorie control spray
- Add in the chicken pieces and brown on one side. Do not turn the chicken until there is colour. Then turn over and fry until brown. Lift out and set aside.
- Add in the chopped garlic and fry until golden. Deglaze with a splash of the chicken stock or wine.
- Add in the rice and the hoisin sauce and stir to combine .Fry for about 5 minutes. Add in all the stock, and gently stir until the liquid is reduced by half.
- Add in the chicken pieces and stir to combine. Add in the cranberries.
- Season with extra salt and pepper. When the liquid is 3/4 absorbed, tip the whole content into an oven proof dish. ( I use a pie dish 24cm diameter. Or 1.7L)
- Cover with the lid if you have one or cover with foil.
- Then bake in the oven Mk 5, 190 for 20 to 25 minutes.
- Remove from oven and add in most of the spring onions and fluff the rice. Cover and put back in the oven for another 5 minutes .
- Remove from oven. Garnish with the remaining spring onions.
- Serve at the table as it is such a pretty dish.
Note: serve with steamed vegetables or a stir fry for a healthy meal.
Enjoy the sight and taste.
