Pressure Cooker Chicken and Brown Rice

First off, I don't like a lot of chicken in my rice. I'm not that fond of chicken any more. Though I will say the organic stuff was GOOD and had I realized just how tasty it was, I would have used another piece of breast meat and saved the strips for another day. And I so totally eyeball my spices that I'm guessing here on the amounts. (I'm pretty good at thinking this is 1/2 tsp and it actually BEING 1/2 tsp when I've measured it.)


1-2 boneless, skinless chicken breast haves (can use any chicken you have!)
*3 cups brown rice
6 cups water, broth, stock or put some bullion in the water
1-2 tsp onion powder
1-2 tsp garlic powder
1-2 tsp turmeric
1-2 tsp poultry seasoning
3 Tbs olive oil (I used 2 of olive and one of bacon drippings - it's a southern thang!)

Put liquid in another pot and bring it to a boil. I had some leftover stock that I made from the carcass of a deli chicken, so I used that. You can also make stock/broth from scratch with a whole chicken. Recipe is here towards the middle of the page and it's the chicken and yellow rice recipe.

While the liquid is coming to a boil, cut your chicken up into pieces. I don't like a lot of chicken, so I cut the pieces small. It made it go farther and  I didn't have so much chicken in my mouth. After cutting up the chicken, set it aside.

Put the oil in the bottom of your pressure cooker (NOT canner!) and put the rice in and lightly brown it. The oil will help toast the rice, keep it from foaming in the pot and help it to not stick to the bottom of the pan as it cooks.

When the rice has toasted and the liquid in the other pot has come to a boil. Add the meat to the rice and then GENTLY add the liquid to the hot rice. It WILL spit and spatter if you add it too quickly! So only add about 2 cups and let it settle down and then add the rest of the liquid. Then add your spices to the mix and stir it all together well. Turn the heat up to high, place the lid on the pot and place the regulator on top of it's post. Bring the pressure up on high heat, then when the regulator begins to rock, turn down the heat to a lower temp. You just want the regulator to rock gently, so the lowest heat that will maintain the rocking is good. When the regulator starts to rock, set the timer for 15 minutes. At the end of the 15 minutes, turn the heat off and just let the pot sit for another 10 minutes. At the end of the 10 minutes, you can finish releasing the pressure, open the lid and fluff the rice. Some people like to then turn the heat back on to dry out the rice a bit, but I don't do that. As I was busy breading the chicken strips from the last post, I let the lid stay on for a little longer. It probably sat for another 5 minutes or so. It won't hurt it if you don't release the pressure at the exact second.

*(I had 2 2/3 cups of long-grain brown, so I filled the rest of the cup up with long-grain white rice.) Just use what you have!

You can use less rice/liquid. I used 2 cups of liquid for each cup of rice. I've read where you can only use 1 1/2 cups of liquid for each cup of rice and you will have a dryer rice, but I like mine a little more sticky. If you cut the amount of rice/liquid, you can then cut the amount of spices. I just spice things to taste, but some people want specifics so I try to oblige.

I like this served with Aji Picante which is a dish I learned to make in Colombia. The recipe is also on the same page as the yellow rice is, just down a little further.

The chicken and rice is another dish that can be frozen. I'd freeze it in meal-size portions - but then I live alone and this much rice won't get eaten at one sitting and I don't want to eat it all week. lol

Homemade Chicken Strips or Nuggets

 This recipe is a starting point for making your own homemade chicken strips or nuggets. Mix and match spices and cracker types to suit your family's tastes and budget. You can use powdered Ranch Dressing instead of the spices. You can make it "taco" by adding in taco seasonings instead of the thyme, basil and marjoram. You can used an Italian seasoning instead of my spices. Or try using BBQ, fajitas,  or jerk chicken spices. Try some dry teriyaki or Chinese 5 spice seasonings for an oriental flavor. You want to use about 2 - 2.5 Tbs of total spices for this amount of crackers.

*4-5 boneless, skinless chicken breasts halves

**1 16-oz box Ritz crackers (4 sleeves), crushed into crumbs Or any type crumbs you want to use.

1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp marjoram
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder

***1/2 - 1 cup cup olive oil (or can use buttermilk, milk, eggs or eggs and milk)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees (F). Spray a cookie sheet (really, I used a jelly roll pan - it has the edges on it.) with cooking spray and set aside.

In a gallon zip-top bag, mix together everything except the chicken and the oil (or it's substitutes) and shake it up so that the spices are distributed.

Cut chicken up into about 4 strips each or cut into nuggets. You can just quarter the breast pieces for large nuggets; cut the breasts into strips and leave half long and half short; or cut the strips into 1"-2" pieces for regular-sized nuggets.

Dip the chicken strips/nuggets about 4 pieces at a time for strips and about 10 pieces at a time for nuggets, into the oil (or it's substitute), turning to coat. When all those pieces are coated, pick each one up and let a little of the liquid drip off. When all of those pieces are in the zip bag and holding it closed, shake the bag until the pieces are coated. The chicken will slide down into the crumb mix, so you will have to dig for them. That's why having a head count makes life easier. You know if you've left one behind! Place each piece on the prepared pan. I crowded mine together so I could get them all on one pan, but you can separate them more and use two pans.

Bake at 375 deg. for about 20 minutes for strips, about 15 minutes for nuggets. (ovens vary a bit, so check on them a couple of minutes before the time is up) About 1/2 way into the cooking time, turn them over and slightly reposition them a little more apart (they will have plumped up some, so they're not taking up as much room. Finish baking them. I always look for and cut into the thickest piece that I can find to make sure it's done. If it's done, then the rest of them are done. (It won't look pink and the juices are clear when it's done.) If it's not done, then cook for another couple of minutes and check another piece.

Enjoy with your favorite dipping sauce: ketchup, mustard, ranch, bbq, teriyaki, hot sauce, Sriracha, peanut sauce, you name it. Or eat them plain.

Serve with a side of rice and a salad. I made some pressure cooker chicken and brown rice (I went REALLY light on the chicken in it - I used the chicken for the strips instead.)

* I used boneless skinless because I found some organically grown on sale for .99 cents a pound. Couldn't pass that one up. Normally, I'd just debone and skin some chicken and use whatever I had. The meat doesn't have to be breast meat.

** I used Ritz crackers because I had a box that I had bought for my son some months ago. He's moved out. I tried to eat them, but they were just TOO salty for my tastes (I used to like them?? what the heck?). Anyway, I didn't want to throw them away. They worked really well in this recipe.

***About the oil. I thought it would crisp up the chicken coating more. It really didn't and made the strips a little greasy. Next time I'll go back to my normal buttermilk or milk and egg to moisten the chicken. I'll probably also flour the chicken first, then dip in the liquid and then dip in the crumbs. I think more will stick onto the chicken that way and make it crispier. The flavor was good, just a bit greasy. But then, I don't normally eat fried foods, I bake my foods - even French fries.

I've never frozen this recipe, but it should freeze well. I'd reheat the frozen strips/nuggets at about 400- 425 deg (F) for about 15-20 minutes.

This made a LOT of coating. Enough that I'm going to put the rest in the freezer for another time. You can either cut the coating portion of the recipe in half or just freeze it in the zip bag like I'm going to do.

Everlasting chicken - was Magic chicken

Ok, my 18dd suggested I change the name of this post. I'd forgotten that "magic" has other connotations - pot (and I ain't talkin' 'bout what 'cha cook in!)

I thought I'd include my everlasting chicken recipe. I use this recipe to make several meals from one fryer size (3-4 pounds) chicken. You can make 1 large pot of soup, 1 large pot of either chicken and rice or chicken and dumplings or a smaller pot of each. You will also have breast meat to make another meal out of, plus more chicken meat from wings, back, neck and scraps that didn't come off with the breast and then more broth.

First I thaw my frozen chicken (if it was frozen), then wash it out, pick off any missed pin feathers and remove the giblets. I then take Mr or Ms chicken and put it into my large soup pot, cover it with water - to about 2" from the top of this large pot. I then season it with salt, onion powder, garlic powder, Adobo and poultry seasoning. Bring it all to a boil and reduce heat to low, cover and let simmer for about 20 mins.

I then remove the meat from the pot. I have a partially done chicken and about 6 cups of stock.
Next I remove the legs/thigh quarter from both sides and set that aside. I preheat the oven to 350 degrees, while that's heating I re-season the chicken itself with the above spices, sans salt. I put the chicken and the giblets into a roasting pan and cook the chicken for another 30 mins or until the meat is tender.

While the breast meat is cooking, I remove the meat from the thigh/leg quarters. I put the fat, skin and bones aside, I'm going to use them again later.

When the meat is off the quarters, I then need to make some choices. What do I want to make with this batch of broth. I can make a large pot of soup, or I can wait and make the soup from the later broth I make from the scraps and bones. Normally, I make a batch of either rice or dumplings. I have a ds, Thang #2, that is a bottomless pit, so I make 3 cups of rice to the 6 cups of broth, or split the broth into two pans and make dumplings. I could just make the dumplings in one pot, but we like the fluffy dumplings and found that 2 pots made better dumplings for our taste buds than one pot did.

Chicken and Dumplings
Broth
Chicken cut or shredded into pieces
Biscuit dough (This is Southern U.S. biscuits, made with flour, salt, baking powder, milk and shortening/lard/oil. Biscuits in the rest of the English-speaking world are cookies to us. We DON'T want sweets here lol)

Make your biscuit dough with about 1/2 more milk than the recipe calls for. You don't want a stiff dough that you can knead, but you don't want soup either. It needs to be stiff enough to use a spoon to scoop it out. (if I need to post a recipe, email me and I will. It's late and I don't want to go hunting for it now. lol)

Now put the chicken and broth on and bring it to a boil, then turn it down to simmer.

To make dumplings, you will need a cup or glass of cool water and two kitchen spoons, not measuring spoons, but what we call table spoons. Bigger than what you stir your coffee/tea with, probably a soup spoon elsewhere. Here's what to do: dip one spoon in water, dip it into the dough and come up with a lump of dough on your spoon. Now dip the second spoon in the water and use it to push the dumpling into the now simmering water. Keep dipping the spoons into the water before you go for the dumpling dough and they will slide right off the spoons.

When you have all the dough into the pot, cover the pot and set the timer for 10 mins. Listen to make sure it doesn't boil over - with the lid on, you may need to turn it down just a tad, but you do want it to be simmering. At the end of 10 mins, take the lid off and let it cook for another 10 minutes. Test a top dumpling. It should be light and fluffy. The inside should be cooked. If it's still gummy, let it cook a minute or two longer and it should be done. Also note that the top dumplings will be fluffy, but the dumpling underneath will just be clumps of cooked dough. Some people like the more solid dough a lot. We don't like them as much, so that's why I use two pans - even though I could get all the dough into one pot - even when it's a triple batch of dough.

When I do two pans of broth, I double or triple my recipe to have enough fluffy dumplings. So one batch of biscuit recipe should be enough for one pot of broth for normal people.


Chicken and yellow rice - VERY easy to make
meat from 2 thigh/leg quarters
6 cups broth (add water if you're a little short on the broth. Or water and bullion if there's no broth)
3 cups rice
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp poultry seasoning
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp Adobo
1 tsp salt

Measure broth and rice carefully! Too much of one affects how the rice will turn out!
Put the ingredients back in the big pot and bring to a boil. Turn heat to low (3 on mine on a scale of low to 9, 9 being the hottest), stir well, put a tight-fitting lid on the pot and set your timer for 14 minutes. DO NOT remove the lid, stir or otherwise mess with it. LEAVE it ALONE! When the timer goes off. STILL DO NOT remove the lid, stir or otherwise mess with it! Just take it off the heat and let it sit for 10 mins.

At the end of this time, you will have perfectly cooked rice, no sticking to the bottom of the pan, no undone rice and no soupy rice - unless you've either not measured carefully, don't have a tight-fitting lid or opened the pot. I've fixed rice like this for 30 years and the only time it has ever failed is when I've gotten lazy with measuring the broth or rice. This means getting to eye level with your measuring pitcher for the liquid and using a knife to scrape the excess rice off the top of the measuring cup instead of scooping and shaking the rice sort of level.

The turmeric will give the rice a nice yellow color.

I serve this with my Aji picante (Colombian salsa)that I posted before. (And if someone will tell me how to link back to that post, I'll gladly link it for everyone.)

Salsa Colombian style (Aji Picante)
6 Roma tomatoes, or 3 regular tomatoes, diced small
1 med onion, diced small
1 jalapeño pepper, minced
1 1/2 tsp salt
red wine vinegar
olive oil

Place in a medium size bowl and mix together tomatoes, onions and peppers. Add vinegar to 1 1/2" to 2" below vegies. Pour a 1/2"-1" layer of oil over all. Add salt and stir well. Use fresh.

Back to our chicken in the oven. When it's done, remove the meat from the bone. You may save the breast meat either in two halves or shred it. You can make another meal or two from this meat. Either chicken sandwiches, chicken salad or baked breast meat with potatoes/rice, vegies and bread or salad. You will also have meat from the wings and back, as well as scraps of meat from other parts. Save these for the next round of broth-making.

More Broth
Save the skin, bones and scraps from the chicken from the oven as well as any goodness on the bottom of the roasting pan. Do NOT add the liver, this will make the broth have too strong a flavor - unless your family is just crazy about the taste of liver. I've been known to add some water to that pan and "deglaze" it, then add that to the broth pot as part of the water. Add the ones from the thigh/leg quarters. Add a couple of carrots, not peeled, just broken into about 3 pieces, 1 onion, not peeled, just cut into quarters, 1 or 2 stalks of celery - again, just broken into 3 pieces. Place into a roasting pan or into your big pot and cover well with water. Add the usual cast of characters: salt, onion powder, garlic powder, Adobo and poultry seasoning. Place in the oven at 350 for a couple of hours, replacing the water as needful or place on stovetop and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for a couple of hours. (Can put this in the crockpot too!) At the end of this time period, you have a nice broth. Strain it (I just pour it into my colendar, with a bowl underneath it to catch the broth). Toss the bones, skin and cooked out vegies. You can either put it into a container overnight, remove the fat and use; or go head and use it. The fat will pool at the top and you can skim it off with a spoon.

Chicken noodle soup
Broth
Egg noodles
Bits of chicken from deboning the chicken
Anything else you'd like to add - shredded carrots, potatoes, cooked rice instead of noodles, diced celery, diced onions, etc.
Seasonings to taste

Put the broth, noodles and bits of chicken into the soup pot along with anything else you'd like to add. Bring to a boil and lower heat. Cook until the noodles are done. If using uncooked rice, make sure you use 1 cup of rice to at least 3 cups of broth, perhaps even 4 cups of broth. You want soup, not a pot of rice.


Chicken gravy

You can also use some of the broth to make gravy and shred some chicken into it. Serve it over rice, potatoes or bread.

For each cup of broth you want to make into gravy, add 3 tablespoons of flour to another bowl. Add just enough water to make a slurry. Pour the slurry into the hot broth and bring it to a boil, stirring constantly. Adjust your seasonings.

Chicken Pot Pie
Gravy from above with some meat (or not)
pie crust, biscuit dough, corn bread dough, tortillas, mashed potatoes, etc. Enough for 1 or 2 crusts (one for top and one for bottom - if you want a bottom crust)
frozen mixed vegies
diced potatoes (see note below)

This is so simple. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Select your pan - pie plate, 9x13, cast iron skillet, casserole, whatever you want to use.
Mix gravy with meat and vegies. If you want a bottom crust, pat it into your chosen vessel, otherwise grease with your choice of stuff so you can get it out of the pan when cooked. Then pour the mixture into the pan. Top with whatever your using for a top crust. If a solid crust, cut a couple of small slits into it. Place your pan on a cookie sheet (to catch any overflows) and put in the oven for 30 minutes or so. You want to heat the food through and brown your crust.

All of these recipes can be frozen - unless you add potatoes to anything. I've heard that other people freeze potatoes, but I've never had good luck with the texture after doing that.

There you have it. One miracle with chicken.

Hot wings and curly fries

I lived in Tallahassee, FL for many years and one of my favorite places to eat was a place called "Buffalo Wings and Rings". They had the best hot wings, curly fries and a fun atmosphere to eat them in.

I now live in North GA, and even if I lived in FL, I couldn't afford to eat out. But there's a way I can still have the hot wings. Make them myself. What a novel idea. How the heck do they make them anyway?

Well, I don't know how they make them, but here's how I make them.

First, I don't buy just the wings. They went from being about .29 cents a pound to $1.70 a pound. As the craze for hot wings hit, the prices went sky high. Too much to pay for bones and a little meat. Not when a whole chicken is on sale for .79 a pound!

So I do one of two things. I either save up my wings or I use other chicken parts for "wings". It's the heat that's fun. But crispy skin is tasty too. hummmm, nutrition or taste. Your choice.

I've gotten to where when I buy a chicken, I cut it into parts and freeze the parts, not a whole bird. I can make boneless, skinless chicken parts and use the bones and skin for stock. I cut my wing tips and save for the soup pot, to go with backs, skin and bones. You can either cut the wings apart at the joint or leave them whole. I left this last batch whole. Worked just fine. I've also cut breast strips into 1" x how ever long the breast is and used those for "wings". I seal my bags well and then freeze. I thaw before using the meat.

You have two choices for cooking the meat. You can deep fry it or bake it. I bake it. It's less fuss and grease. If you fry them, you would add the sauce after they are fried.

To make chicken wings:
First, preheat oven to 425 degrees.
I prepare my baking pan by spraying it with no-stick spray. I also use a stainless steel cooling rack for a rack to bake the meat on. I also spray the rack with no-stick.

While the oven preheats, you prepare the sauce.
The sauce is comprised of two items - hot sauce and butter. The more hot sauce, the hotter the finished product. The more butter, the milder the sauce. I used about 1/2 stick of butter to about 1 1/2 cups sauce. You may want to start out with 1/2 cup hot sauce. Personally, I like "Louisiana Hot Sauce" best. Use whatever brand is available to you. (Anyone have a recipe for making homemade "hot sauce"? It is not the same thing as adding vinegar to hot peppers which is what Southerners use on greens. This hot sauce I use is red, it's not "Tabasco sauce" it has less heat than that and it's not a Tabasco pepper that is used, but is still pretty hot. I also know it's not a Jalapeño - it would be green if it was.)

Melt the butter and a bit of sauce in the microwave or on the stove top. Carefully taste the sauce and see if it's hot enough (spicy vs temperature) for you. If not, add more hot sauce or more butter. (You may need to reheat it if you add much sauce - the butter tends to cool and clump if too much cold sauce is added to it.) When it's hot enough for your taste buds, your ready to put it on the chicken.

Personally, I just dunk the chicken pieces in the sauce, coat them well and then using two fingers, pick them up and plunk them on the rack. Or you can use tongs to maneuver the chicken pieces or put the chicken on the rack, then use a brush and brush the sauce on.
If you use your fingers MAKE SURE YOU DON'T TOUCH YOUR EYES until you've washed your hands - WELL!! It will burn your skin if you touch your face or tender skin areas!

Place chicken in oven and let bake for about 20 mins and then check the pieces. You're looking for crispy skin and cooked meat. If you used skinless meat, then just make sure the meat is cooked properly. I had very large wings that I was working with and it took about 35 mins to get them baked. I really should have let them go another 5 or 10 mins to crisp the skin, but I was very hungry and since the meat was done, when ahead and ate them. I just didn't have as crispy skin as I would have had I waited a while longer.

I serve these with celery sticks, carrot sticks, Ranch or Bleu cheese dressing and a bowl of hot sauce. At "Buffalo's" this extra sauce was known as extra hot, extra wet and they poured it directly on the finished wings. Sometimes I find curly fries at the store and will buy those. I'm trying to figure out if I can use my apple peeler/corer to make curly fries. I haven't tried it yet.

Please note, I'm a Southerner. I have an asbestos tongue. The comment on the Louisiana hot sauce bottle is: "Just one drop will do you." NOT! It might do a Yankee, but not me or most of my friends. We eat the stuff straight up. So unless you're a Southerner, Hispanic or other group that eats hot foods, go light with the hot sauce until you've found the heat level that you like. That's why I suggested tasting the sauce before you use it.