Garlic Cheddar Chicken & Rice Bake. Loaded with chicken and rice and plenty of cheese, this delicious and easy casserole is the epitome of comfort food.
I had some leftover chicken in the refrigerator that needed using up today. My mom always said I was a Master at creating something delicious out of nothing.
I don't know if she was right about that or not, but I do love taking what I have and making something tasty with it.
A couple of years ago I discovered how easy it was to bake rice in the oven.
You use basically the same amounts of rice and water/liquid/stock that you would use on top of the stove, except you bake it in the oven instead of a saucepan.
It does take quite a bit longer, but I find it takes on a lovely nutty flavor that we both enjoy very much.
Almost like an oven baked rice pilaf. I love rice pilaf.
Today I added the leftover chicken, chopped and some cheese along with some seasoning and garlic powder.
I wanted something with a lovely cheesy garlic bread flavor. I adore garlic bread.
Its all very simple to make. Just mix the chicken, rice, some chicken stock, grated cheddar and your seasonings together in a casserole dish.
Cover and bake.
Its takes only thirty five to forty minutes to bake.
While its in the oven, you can get on with making a salad, or cooking some vegetables to serve on the side.
Today I cooked baby English peas and some honey/butter/nutmeg glazed carrots . . . so good.
Once the rice has absorbed all of the liquid in the dish, you scatter cheesy buttered cracker crumbs over top to cover.
Then simply return the casserole to the oven to bake for a little while longer, just until golden brown.
The amounts given serve two generously, or at least us two anyways.
You might have a heartier appetite, in which case it would be adequate for two people.
Nutty, cheesy and delicious. You can vary the amount of garlic powder you use.
I wouldn't use any more than 1/4 tsp but you could certainly use less.
If you have a family to feed, you could certainly also very easily double the ingredients . . .
I like to use a well flavored strong cheddar cheese for this. In North America I would use a sharp.
It will give you a lovely flavor boost without having to use too much.
In any case use a good, well flavored cheddar cheese.
My husband adores Cheddar cheese.
One of his largest disappointments when we holidayed in France one year was that he could not find any Cheddar cheese there . . .
Never mind that there was an abundance of a whole variety of other cheeses.
In his mind, if there's no Cheddar in the house, there's no cheese at all . . .
He is so, so, so British, but then again, that is one of the things I love about him . . . that and our mutual love of Cheddar!
Yield: 2
Garlic Cheddar Chicken & Rice Bake
A simple and delicious dinner that basically cooks itself. Serve with salads or a variety of vegetables on the side. Sized for two but easily doubled.
ingredients:
- 1 TBS butter, melted
- 30g cracker crumbs (1/4 cup)
- 2 cooked chicken breasts, cut into cubes (about 1 1/2 cups)
- 105g uncooked long grain rice (1/2 cup)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp each, pepper and garlic powder
- 295ml chicken stock (1 1/4 cups)
- 120g strong cheddar cheese, grated (1 cup) divided
- chopped parsley to garnish, optional
instructions:
How to cook Garlic Cheddar Chicken & Rice Bake
- Preheat the oven to 190*C/375*F/ gas mark5. Butter a 1 litre (1 QT) baking dish. Set aside.
- Mix together the melted butter and cracker crumbs well. Stir in 30g (1/4 cup) of the cheese. Set aside.
- Mix the rice, chicken, salt, pepper, garlic powder and chicken broth together in a bowl. stir in the remainder of the cheese and then pour the whole lot into the buttered baking dish. Cover tightly with foil and bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 45 minutes, until the rice is tender and all of the water has been absorbed. Remove from the oven, uncover and give it a stir. Sprinkle the crumb/cheese mixture evenly over top and return to the oven. Bake for a further five minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with chopped parsley if desired. Serve hot.
I think if you wanted to you could add some thawed chopped frozen broccoli to this as well, which would be quite nice. We just had it as is and were quite happy with it.
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I have seen quite a variety of these crisp buttery potato stacks on the Internet over the past few years. Some done like roses, some simply stacked. All attractive and crisp edged. All requiring a certain amount of faffing about.
At the weekend, I decided to put a different spin on them, and decided to try just layering them in concentric circles, radiating in size from larger overlapping slices on the bottom, topped with slightly smaller ones, all the way to a couple of really small slices in the centres, if that makes sense.
I was completely pleased with the end result. I ended up with beautiful rosettes of potatoes . . .
with buttery crisp edges, some of them being ruffled . . .
and yet at the same time meltingly tender in the middle . . . the tip of a sharp knife will slip very easily into the centres without any resistance . . .
Aren't they pretty? I think so . . .
At the same time they are beautifully flavoured . . .
with fresh herbs . . . earthy rosemary, grassy thyme, sweet parsley . . . .
fine sea salt and coarsely ground black pepper. Such a delicious combination!
You could add some garlic if you wanted to, but do be careful it won't burn. Burnt garlic can be quite bitter. These are actually quite perfect as is.
They look so pretty on the plate and would go with just about anything . . . poultry, meat, fish . . .
They would also make a beautiful side dish for dinner parties, especially if you are serving more than one course and you don't want people to fill up too much on any one course . . .
For a dinner party with multiple courses the recipe below could easily serve twice the number . . . as you would only want to put one rosette on each plate . . .
Such a pretty addition. I can hear all of the oooohs and aaaahs now!
I can't get over how very pretty these turned out and how incredibly delicious they are. Especially if you are a fan of crisp edges mixed with flavourful tenderness!
Yield: variable
Crispy Herbed Potato Rosettes
Crisp and buttery on the outsides, meltingly tender inside, with plenty of flavour. Pretty too!
ingredients:
- 2 pounds potatoes, washed, dried and unpeeled
- 2 TBS butter, melted
- 2 TBS light olive oil
- 1 tsp finely chopped rosemary
- 1 tsp finely chopped thyme
- 1 tsp dried parsley
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp coarse ground black pepper
- low fat cooking spray.
instructions:
How to cook Crispy Herbed Potato Rosettes
- Preheat the oven to 195*C/375*F/ gas mark 6. Line two or three baking sheets with foil and spray generously with low fat cooking spray. Set aside.
- Trim the ends of each potato and then cut the remainder into 1/8 inch thick slices. Put into a bowl along with the melted butter, oil, herbs, salt and pepper. Toss together with your hands to combine well and coat all the potato slices as best as you can.
- Arrange the potato slices in layered rosettes on the prepared baking sheets, by creating circles of overlapping potatoes, with the largest size slices on the bottom, topped with smaller slices of overlapping potatoes, placing the smallest slices in the centres. You should get three or four layers, counting the centres.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, until the edges are golden brown and the potatoes are tender when you prod them with the tip of a knife. Keep a watch on them to make sure they don't burn, depending on how thin you have sliced them. Remove from the baking sheet with a spatula to a heated serving plate and serve immediately.
I really hope you will try these out at your next dinner party or occasion! I am having people over for Todd's Birthday later this week and really wanted to be able to present something as a delicious and yet very simple side for the Roast Beef I am planning on serving. I think this is it!
Up Tomorrow: Garlic Cheddar Chicken Bake
Sausage wasn't something I enjoyed very much when I was growing up. I am not sure why. I never really began to enjoy them at all until I was a grown woman and cooking my own. I liked them almost burnt on the outside with catsup for dipping. My father enjoyed them dipped in mayonnaise. As a child growing up in Canada, in my experience at least, there was only one kind of sausage. Ordinary breakfast sausage, long thin cylinders of meat, stuffed into skins, fatty and flavoured with nutmeg and poultry seasoning. That was it. Growing up in the 50's /60's and early 70's in small communities meant that we were not exposed to outside flavours or choices. We had what we had, and that was that.
It was not until I was an adult that I experienced another kind of sausage. My sister-in-law who lived in Toronto had studied at the Cordon Bleu and was considered to be an expert in cooking. We spent the weekend at hers once, and she cooked sausages for us for breakfast. These were not the sausages of my childhood, they were plump and fat and had a fabulous flavour. She simmered them slowly in lemon water first and then browned them off in a skillet. That is when I learnt to love sausage, and in the intervening years have come to enjoy all sorts and varieties. What she served us that weekend were British Butchers Sausages and they were quite simply gorgeous in my opinion.
One of the most exciting foods I was introduced to moving over here to the UK was the great British Sausage, or Bangers as they are also lovingly called, and let me tell you, they have about as many different kinds as they do areas and counties here, a whole cornucopia of wonderful flavours, some of them quite spectacular. I have my favourites.
The word "sausage" comes from the Latin, "salsicius", prepared by salting, which in turn comes from Salsus, meaning "salted."Sausages have been produced, eaten and enjoyed in Great Britain since Roman times. The Anglo-Saxons developed their own varieties and the Normans brought French ideas into the mix, including pure pork sausages, black puddings (made with blood) and the andouille, an entrail sausage known in England as chitterlings.
You will find sausages in just about every country in the world, each with their own spin on this meat, fresh, dried and everything in between. What is it that makes British sausage stand out from the rest? What is it about British sausage that makes it so great?
For one we have such a wide variety to choose from . . . Yorkshire, Oxford . . . Cambridge, Cumberland . . . Country Pork, and those are just the basics. We stuff them with leeks and cheeses, spring onions, caramelised onions, mustard, honey, etc. We enjoy them for breakfast and we enjoy them for lunch. We love them for teatime, or high tea, and dinner. We eat them in baguettes and rolled up in puff pastry. Here in the UK, we just love our sausages, full stop!
In days of old they would have been dried and salted, perhaps even smoked, for preservation. These days for the most part however, with the modern wonders of refrigeration, we tend to enjoy them fresh. You can find them in other countries, but I have heard again and again how much people miss British Sausages where they live and how they can't find them, so first up I am going to give you a recipe which you can use to make your own homemade Basic British Pork Sausages
Basic British Pork Sausage
Yield: Makes about 16
You should be able to buy the skins for these at a butchers or from an on line sausage making source. They will have been salted, which helps to preserve them, so do soak them in cold water first, preferably running water, running the water through the actual skins, and then dry with a cloth. Also cut them into 10 inch lengths, tying a knot in one end before filling. This will give you a bit of an excess but this will shrink during cooking and help to prevent them from bursting. You will need a meat grinder, or a good food processor.
ingredients:
- 2 pounds of boned and skinned shoulder of pork
- 4 pig's cheeks, trimmed
- 1/2 pound skinned pork back fat
- 1 brown onion, peeled and very finely chopped
- 1 1/2 TBS unsalted butter
- 1/4 tsp fresh thyme, chopped
- 1/4 tsp fresh sage, chopped
- 1 garlic clove, peeled and minced (optional)
- pinch ground mace
- 2 slices of stale good dry white bread, crusts removed and crumbled
- 1 medium free range egg, beaten lightly
- Worcestershire sauce
- salt and pepper
- about 4 meters (4 1/2 yards) sausage skins, well washed
- 25 - 50g of lard for frying (2 - 4 TBS)
instructions:
How to cook Basic British Pork Sausage
- Put all of the meats through the meat grinder on a medium mince. This should give you a medium coarse finish. If you prefer a smoother texture, you can pass the meat through the grinder several more times. Cover and place the minced meat into the refrigerator.
- Saute the onion and garlic in the butter along with the herbs and the mace over low heat, without browning for two to three minutes until quite soft. Let cool completely.
- Take the meat out of the refrigerator and mix completely with the cooked onion mixture. Stir in the bread crumbs and egg, adding a few drops of Worcestershire sauce and some seasoning. Take care not to over do the Worcestershire sauce. To check your flavours, take a small amount and fry it in a skillet, taste and then adjust the mixture as needed.
- To fill the sausage skins, you can use a sausage skin filler, or you can use a piping bag fitted with a 1/2 inch plain tube, filling the bag only half full for better control.
- Take the sausage skin and pull it back to the knot. Sit it over the end of the piping tube and squeeze. Once the sausage skin has been filled to the size of a standard sausage, remove the piping bag and push the meat further down the skin to give a good plump shake, pushing out any air left in the skin, then tie at the end. Repeat to fill all your sausage skins. Place onto a plate, cover and allow to rest in the refrigerator before proceeding to cook them.
- They are ready to be grilled or pan-fried. Pan frying is my preferred method of cooking. Melt the lard in a heavy bottomed skillet. Lay the sausage in the hot fat and fry gently, for 15 to 20 minutes, turning frequently, until they are golden brown and cooked thoroughly. Enjoy!
Note - you can replace the shoulder and cheeks with 2 1/2 pounds of pork belly, reducing the amount of pork fat by about 1/3 of a pound.
My absolute favourite of all the sausages has to be Cumberland sausage. It is said to be the meatiest of all the sausages and has a very distinctive peppery flavour that I really enjoy. At one time they used to be made from a special breed of pig, which unfortunately died out back in the late 50's/early 60's.
One of the most recognisable features of Cumberland sausage is that it is not twisted into links, but rather long length are shaped and rolled into a "Catherine Wheel" shape. Some of them can be quite long and in Cumbria you actually buy the by the length rather than the weight. We have had some really delicious ones when we have been staying up in Cumbria, that I have never been able to find anywhere else. Traditionally they are flavoured with a mix of cayenne pepper, white pepper, ground nutmeg and salt, a combination which I find extremely delicious. Its nice and peppery. If you want to have a try at making your own (and I hope that you do), it is best for you to just pipe the meat into two or three long sausages and then coil them into Cumberlands when done. You can then pan fry, grill or roast them as desired.
Yield: Makes 2 to 3 good sized Cumberlands
Cumberland Sausage
Delicious. There is no other word for them. They are lovely kept in the coil shape and secured with a skewer and cooked whole, for cutting into sections at the table.
ingredients:
- 1 pound lean pork shoulder, cut into rough dice
- a generous 1/2 pound pork belly, rind removed, cut into rough dice
- 1/3 pound pork back fat, cut into rough dice
- 100g soft fresh white bread crumbs (1 2/3 cup)
- 1 tsp chopped fresh thyme
- 1 tsp chopped fresh sage
- 1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
- 2 - 3 yards sausage skins, soaked and washed in water, cut into 2 to 3 lengths
- butter, lard or cooking oil for frying
For the special Cumberland seasoning:
- 2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp ground white pepper
- pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
- pinch of cayenne pepper
instructions:
How to cook Cumberland Sausage
- Mince the meats to your choice using a meat grinder on a coarse disc for one turn, and the on a medium disc for another. Mix in the bread crumbs, herbs and seasonings.
- To fill the sausage skins, you can use a sausage skin filler, or you can use a piping bag fitted with a 1/2 inch plain tube, filling the bag only half full for better control.
- Tie a knot in one end of each length of skin.
- Take the sausage skin and pull it back to the knot. Sit it over the end of the piping tube and squeeze. Once the sausage skin has been filled to the size of a standard sausage, remove the piping bag and push the meat further down the skin to give a good plump shake, pushing out any air left in the skin, then tie at the end. Repeat to fill all your sausage skins. Shape into coils and place onto a plate, cover and allow to rest in the refrigerator for at least half an hour before proceeding to cook them.
- To bake, preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Brush with butter and place in a roasting tray. Roast for 25 to 30 minutes basting every so often with some butter.
- To pan fry, heat a skillet and add a drop of lard or cooking oil. Place the sausage into the pan and gently fry until golden on the underside (12 to 15 minutes), flip over and fry gently on the other side for 8 to 10 minutes. Serve immediately.
- To grill, brush with butter and place under a medium hot grill, cooking for 8 to 10 minutes per side.
- Serve hot.
TOAD IN THE HOLE - a British Comfort-food Favourite
A delightful and tasty comfort-food-recipe I discovered shortly after I arrived here
was a lovely dish called Toad in the Hole. I had often heard about this
British delicacy but had never had any idea of what it was let alone
ever had the chance to try it. I soon learnt that it had nothing to do
with holes, dirt, or even toads for that matter!
The origin of the name 'Toad-in-the-Hole' is quite vague. Most suggestions are that the dish's resemblance to a toad sticking its little head out of a hole provide the dish with its somewhat unusual name.
Yield: 2 - 3
Toad in the Hole
To be sure, this is quite simply sausages baked in the oven with a delicious Yorkshire pudding batter baked around them, but there is an art to making a good one. Serve with plenty of fluffy mashed potatoes, onion gravy and a vegetable on the side.
ingredients:
- 2 large free range Eggs
- 125g Plain Flour (1 cup, minus 2 TBS)
- 150ml Milk (2/3 cup)
- 150ml Cold Water (2/3 cup)
- Salt & Pepper
- 6 Good Quality Herby Sausages of your choosing (I like Cumberland myself)
- 2 tbsp Lard or Dripping or Cooking Oil
instructions:
How to cook Toad in the Hole
- On a low heat cook the Sausages in a frying pan on all sides until nicely browned and sticky. Do not prick the skins! Allow to cool.
- Crack open the eggs into a large measuring jug and beat well. Add the milk and water together, mixing it all together really well. Set aside.
- Sift the the flour into a large bowl and season with a sprinkling of salt & pepper. Make a well in the centre. Gradually whisk in the liquid mixture, whisking until you have a stiff but smooth batter with no lumps. Allow to rest for half an hour.
- Pre-heat the oven to 205*C/425*F. Slip the lard or oil into a deep sided baking tin and place just this in the oven. Once it is quite hot and the fat is sizzling, quickly, but carefully, take it out and rest on the top of the hob. Pour in the Batter mixture. Then add the Sausages, parallel to each other, the length of the tin.
- Place back into the oven and bake for around half an hour until the batter is puffed up, golden brown and crispy. Serve cut into squares with fluffy mashed potatoes and a delicious gravy of your own choosing.
Sticky Sausages with Cream & Mustard Mash
And there you have it, all I know about sausages. How to make your own British Sausages, and a few ideas on how to cook them once you have them made!
Up Tomorrow: Crispy Herbed Potato Rosettes.
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