New Post Idea... Ben's Recipes

In my past life, I worked in food service. Working with various cooks and menus gave me the short order experience to whip up some half-baked versions of various dishes at home. Now that my brother is getting all domesticated, with a wife and twins on the way, it is time to share some tips on quick and cheap meal preparation when feeding the fam.

Most of my recipe's don't use any real measuring, just a dash of this and that. Always measure if using a packaged sauce or when cooking rice so you have the right liquid content, but seasonings, I wing it! Another tip, keep the salt away until the table.

Here is one of my favorite fixin's:

Baked Chicken over Rice

Shop around for a good deal on whole chickens. Our local market often has weekend thawed whole young chickens on sale monday for as little as .49/pound, but usually .99/pound getting you a little clucker for under $6 bones.

Step up now since you saved on the chicken, and buy some Jasmine Rice, well worth paying twice the price for some good rice in my opinion.

1st get a roasting pan, or large cassrole dish big enough for the bird, then using the ratio of water/rice and based on how many your feeding, put the rice & water in the bottom of the dish.

Wash and season the whole bird, throwing away the extra bits. I use a sprinkle of savory, some minced garlic, and some fresh ground pepper. You can use a mix of spice of your choice, just please don't use season salt!

Place the bird on the rice & water, cover and bake @ 325 until the bird is done
(160 or hotter in the middle of the breast, should take about 1 1/2 hours - 2 hours depending on the birds weight), remove the cover, and brown the top of the bird, by setting the oven to broil and WATCH it until it is golden brown... DON'T leave, this is how you burn it.

You know it is perfect if the leg just pulls right off with little effort, and the rice should be done and full of chicken flavor.

Serve with a vegi of your choice, corn is my favorite with chicken.