Hey there Honey's and New-Bees!

When Romeo and I first started dating I wanted to impress him by making him a homemade dinner. I had a couple of cookbooks on hand so I picked out a simple chicken and rice dish similar to the one my grandmother used to make. I was so hopeful and confident that this was going to turn out, I mean how could I screw up chicken and rice?!

But I did ….and I’ll tell you how…I didn’t follow the instructions, skipped a bunch of steps because they didn’t seemed necessary to me and just rushed everything. Romeo and I still laugh about how awful that meal was and he would ask me for years what it was I was actually trying to make.

Through those conversations I discovered his grandmother also made something similar, so I went on an “investigation” and asked both my relatives and his relatives how to make this dish properly.
There were definitely some variations between the two families, but the steps and process (the things I skipped) were relatively the same.

When I finally attempted this dish again I picked out what I liked from each family’s variation made the recipe I’m sharing with you now. Needless to say, since I’m sharing this recipe, the recipe was a hit! And this is probably the most requested dish in our home.

I hope you find this dish as warm and comforting as we do, and please share your own twists and variations in the comment section :)!

Generously salt your chicken and let it sit while you wait for your dutch oven to heat up. Once heated, add your olive oil and allow it to heat up for another minute or so. It’s really important that you wait for your dutch oven and oil to heat up before cooking, otherwise your chicken will cook unevenly and stick to the pan.
Fry chicken in batches, making sure not to over crowd the pan, and fry until your chicken is a light golden brown on all sides. Remove from pan, transfer to a clean plate, and set aside.

In the same oil (which now has all that nice chicken flavour), add your onions and red peppers with a little salt to draw out the moisture. Fry for 2-3 minutes, then add your garlic. Although many recipes call to add your garlic at the same time as your onion, garlic tends to burn really quickly (which then overpowers all the other flavours) and onions take longer to cook, so to prevent burning add your garlic a little later.

Continue to fry for 1-2 minutes then add your olives (optional), peas, and uncooked rice to dutch oven, stir well and cook until rice is translucent. This is called “dry frying” your rice and helps bring out the flavour, and allows rice cook up in separate grains rather than it clumping up.

Gradually add your stock and tomato sauce to the mixture in your dutch oven. Make sure that all your ingredients are nicely combined, turn up the heat and bring everything to boil. Once your liquid has reached a boil return chicken to pot,  cover and transfer it to the oven to bake for 50 minutes. (Personally I like it when the rice is a little crispy on the top, so I like to remove the lid when there is about 5-10 minutes of cooking time left.)

Once your dish is out of the oven let it sit at room temperature without the lid to cool down for a good 15 minutes (absolutely do not skip this step!), then ENJOY!