Mom's chicken and rice

After 3.5 weeks of being spoiled rotten at my mother's house, I returned to home and my kitchen, which was as barren as a wasteland. All I had in my pantry was some basmati rice leftover in my 10kg sack, some onions, garlic, a few potatoes, and some cooking oil. What a perfect way to start recipes for this blog!

Here's what I picked up from the grocery store for today's recipe:

1 can of crushed tomatoes: $1.10
6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs: $4.99
2 fresh garden tomatoes: $0.70
1 cucumber: $1.29

TOTAL: $8.08 for 3 normal sized servings (as pictured above), or two gluttonous portions that will loosen any belt.

I also used a cup of rice from my 10lb sack, which is about $0.25, and an onion from a 3lb sack, which is about $0.30. Plus a 1/4 cup of cooking oil and a bit of salt and coriander. With this, I made my mother's simple but sweet chicken karahi with rice, with a tomato-cucumber side salad. That's between $2.5/person for 3 dinners, or $4/person if your idea of "happily satisfied" is as overly indulgent as mine.

Ingredients:

Chicken:
3/4 cup of crushed tomatoes (from a can)
1/4 cup of cooking oil
1 medium-sized onion
2 cloves of garlic
6-8 skinless chicken thighs (works fine with bone in or out)
3 teaspoons of coriander
1 teaspoon of salt
small pinch of tumeric (optional, if you have it)
pinch of red chili powder (optional, if you have it)

Basmati Rice:
1 cup of rice
couple pinches of salt
part of the onion above

Instructions:

Chicken

First, dice one onion, and saute it in the cooking oil in a medium-sized pot at high heat. Take about 1/4 of the onion out and leave aside in a separate smaller pot, which you will later use for your rice.

Next, finely chop the garlic into very small pieces. (If you have a garlic press or a mortar and pestle to crush the garlic, that's fine too.)

Returning to your medium-sized pot, now add the crushed tomatoes to the onions, and then add the chopped garlic, salt, and coriander power (and tumeric and red chili powder, if you have them in your spice rack). Stir and let saute for just one minute on high heat, and then turn the heat down to a low simmer and add 1/4 cup of water, so that your sauce doesn't burn. Put a lid over the pot, and let it simmer for 5 minutes.

Once the sauce has cooked on it's own, add the chicken and mix so that the sauce covers all of the meat. Put a lid on it and let it cook, checking on it and stirring every 5-10 minutes so that the sauce doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot and burn. It will be done in 25 minutes.

Rice

Meanwhile, as the chicken is cooking, we boil rice. Take one cup of basmati rice and rinse thoroughly. Add the rice to the smaller pot with the 1/4 onion that we separated earlier. Then add two cups of water and put on high heat.

Boil until the water level drops to just below the level as the rice (when the bubbles are coming through the rice and there are a bunch of little holes). When the water level reaches this low, then turn the heat down to low, and put a small tea towel over the pot and then put a lid on it. Let it cook on low heat for 5 minutes, and then fluff and serve.

Salad

For my salad, I just diced some tomato and cucumber and threw it on the side. If you have a bit of vinegar, you could dress it. I used a couple of drops of balsamic, and it was lovely, but a few drops of plain white vinegar would be fine too.

I have attached a picture of my dinner tonight. I ate 2 ridiculously big portions and am entirely satisfied. I'll probably have the rest tomorrow.

A few pointers

1. We've only used 3/4 cup of crushed tomatoes, which means that I have most of the can of crushed tomatoes left over. Great! So this goes in the fridge for future use. BUT, canned tomatoes have a way of tasting metallic and gross if you leave them in an opened can. It's much better to transfer the remaining contents from the can into a glass jar (reusing one that would have gone in your recycling bin will do just fine). That way, when we use the crushed tomatoes in our next recipe, we won't have to worry about our pasta sauce having a metallic aftertaste!

2. If you can add these things to your pantry/freezer, you will be able to spice up your recipes:

- frozen peas (which are so good in basmati rice and a really easy addition)
- olive oil (which is expensive, but lasts long and gives you diversity and options - if ever you find olive oil on sale - pounce!)
- pasta (I like to have this on hand because it's really easy to make diverse affordable dishes. I actually made a tomato-zucchini pasta sauce for lunch today for $1.75)

Tonight, I sleep well, and satisfied. Thank God for that. :)