Much love for that last anonymous guy for crapping on basically everything that makes America great.
We like us some white rice, canned soup, and fatty chicken. And if you don't like THAT, you can always go to someplace in Africa where all you've got to worry about if your nose falling off from the BO.
[Editor's Note: The anonymous comment referenced in this comment has been removed.]
If you don't like the condensed soup, try using organic vegetable broth instead. That would work just as well, but you'll need to tweak the spices a little bit.
I'm not sure if the butter can be replaced in the rice-browning step with another type of grease; although I'd probably choose to use wild rice rather than white rice.
As far as "fatty animal parts" ... look, buddy, go crunch yer granola elsewhere. Sheesh.
I love this web page. It is one I check regularly and I really appreciate your different approach to cooking. Why anyone would have a problem with anything you do I really do not understand. Why someone would take the time to write a nasty comment, I REALLY don't get.
-A fan
great. Anonymous #1 is a total asshole getting worked up over a food blog, and Anonymous #2 is a bigot.
As AB said: "There are no bad foods, only bad food habits. Butter is not bad. Eating a stick of it at a time is." Anyone who can't see this has been duped by the diet industry.
Eat a well-balanced, varied diet and get at least 20 minutes of exercise a day and you should be fine.
White rice, chicken and butter will not kill you.
So glad I could muster up a little controversy. My apologies for the harsh words to the well intentioned chef, but I stand by my summation of this recipe: gross and sodium laden.
Yes, we Americans love white rice, canned soup and fatty chicken – 400,000+ of us needlessly die each year because of the crap we eat.
Pre-hypertension and pre-diabetes in children is nearing epidemic proportions. American Airlines are losing millions because of fat passengers. And trillion dollar health care costs – well let’s just let the drug companies come up with a fix.
Of course, we as American have a right to eat ourselves to death while we spend billions to protect us from terrorists. Getting “worked up” over a food blog seems no less rational than getting worked up over . . .
This mild concoction of sodium, chicken fat and processed carbohydrates, as with most of the other recipes here, appear tame by Big Mac standards. And that is where the problem lies.
I’ll be packing my bags for Africa now.
Bon Appétit.
And I stand by what I said: I don't think much of people who go out of their way to be ugly and cruel. This site not your cup of tea? Great, I'm pretty sure there are other websites out there that are more to your liking. Just move on - leaving a nasty message before you leave isn't too classy.
By they way, I'm an American, I'm not overweight, I run three miles a day and have no health issues and I love salt! But thanks for worrying about me, anyway.
-A fan of Cooking for Engineers
Ah well ... what else would we expect from a Troll who compares Osama bin Laden and Ronald McDonald: http://www.carbonboy.com/blog17.htm
Let me guess: on your birthday, you eat a piece of celery instead of a piece of cake.
While I won't try to ponder your analogy of bad dietary choices and defense spending, I will say I'm mildly annoyed at health fascists who think if 400,000 don't die today, they won't die tomorrow - or rack up massive health care costs in their geriatric years. I prefer to live my life not obsessing over the latest healthy-living crazes.
Time to crack a beer, smoke a cigarette, and oh, don't forget to pass the salt.
Keep 'em coming Michael. Looking forward to the next recipe calling for heavy cream.
Alright already -- my first apology was perhaps a bit too Bush-like. I'll try again.
Michael Chu, I am sorry for criticizing your chicken and rice dish. Can you ever forgive me?
I’m so depressed over this entire incident it will take two Monster Thickburgers to recover.
Ah, the ol' can of cambell's rears it's ugly head. I ate this dish for years, loved it. I still love it, but I can't handle the sodium. That's just under 2000mg of sodium. I believe. Brown rice in butter? You bet, it's my favorite. Brown it in butter and cook with water or chicken broth. Comes out all nutty and exploded apart. So nice. You could brown it in duck or goose fat too. For these types of dishes I make my own bechamel sauce with sauteed mushrooms. Takes longer but doesn't make the one kidney have left jump.
Another recipe along these lines is to use the creamy cambells soup as a coating along with bread crumbs, spray with oil over chicken pieces and make baked fried chicken.
Or as a gravy over hamburger patties with extra sauteed mushrooms (dump can in to skillet and cook with 3/4 cooked patties).
Ah, the good ol' days ...
Biggles / http://www.meathenge.com/
free range cambell's?
Who would have thought a simple, Campbell's soup recipe would have generated so much discussion?!
While I enjoy living in America and appreciate freedom of speech, I also believe in the freedom of perusing websites at will (or not).
If Anonymous #1 didn't like what he/she saw on this website, he/she is under no obligation to stay.
I may or may not try every recipe Michael posts, but I enjoy reading them, especially for the side comments on cooking he includes.
This is one of the few websites I look at on a regular basis, more for recreation after a long day at work and family obligations.
Keep up the good work, Michael!
Another CfE fan,
Aileen
If you're that overly concerned with salt there is always the low sodium, low fat, etc version. Or perhaps try one of the organic cream of mushrooms.
Pointlessly badgering someone's ingredient choices is more likely to have more people join the anti-diet camp than to agree with well-written but poorly thought out diatribes.
And to Michael, Love the blog, keep up the good work. Thank you for putting in such time and effort.
Dear Anonymous Troll:
"Michael Chu, I am sorry for criticizing your chicken and rice dish. Can you ever forgive me? "
I seriously doubt Mr. Chu cares. If he didn't want criticism he would turn comments off. However, I do take exception to your criticism for the following reasons:
"only an idiot cooks with sodium laden ..."
...isn't probably the best or most effective way to make a point. Calling the author an "idiot" is a classic ad-hominem attack (Cambell's soup has lots of salt, salt is bad, therefore Mr. Chu must certainly be an idiot). I understand it's fashionable and popular for the left to make such attacks, I would presume this is learned behavior from your peer groups and idols. (ad-hominem back-at-ya)
"no one should be eating..."
...see my previous comments regarding "health fascists". I prefer to choose what I eat, not be told what to.
"...no real engineer has that kind of time"
...are you an engineer? I doubt it. Engineers have a habit of focusing, almost to the point of obsessive-compulsion, on the matter at hand.
By the way, when you mentioned: "my first apology was perhaps a bit too Bush-like"
I think you meant Kerry. I believe it was he that would say one thing, then say another. Politics certainly have their place on blogs, but I don't see the relevance here. (no, I'm not a republican...I'm a libertarian, like most level-headed engineers ;-)
Brady
Ahhhh, that’s it – I’m a closeted FOOD NAZI. I had no idea. I didn’t realize term even existed until the famed Soup Nazi episode came to mind with all this talk about fascism.
“Food Fascist” is too good for me -- I should be tried and shot for crimes against humanity (unless those 2 Monster Thickburgers put me out of my misery with a massive heart attack tonight).
In a mere 73-word “poorly thought out diatribe” I insulted “ingredient choices,” used unwarranted obscenities, hopelessly flawed logic and pretty darn poor grammar while still managing to name drop and plug my own thoroughly sinister web log.
All on the flawed premise that American’s eat crap and it’s killing them in numbers unprecedented in this country’s history. Definitely not appropriate for a food blog.
"I’m a closeted FOOD NAZI"
...your word, not mine. I did not use the term "fascism" as a put-down, but as a generalization of the "health activists" in this country that has made "healthy living" their religion. They currently crusade against evil corporations like McDonalds, Burger King, etc... There are trial lawyers galore that are salivating at the thought of sueing the hell out of the fast food industry since they milked all that they can get out of the tobacco industry. Those on the government side would love to regulate and tax the "idiots" who make "poor" health choices.
If you really are interested in helping those 400,000 people a year live longer, do something about it. Posting rude comments on a blog will do nothing to further your "cause".
I have to ask: If you think this is a "dumbass web page", why do you keep coming back?
A libertarian supporting agra-business and big tobacco: wow! I had you guys figured all wrong. I was hoping for your support to legalize pot. Just think -- the government could tax it and vaporize the deficient in a year or two – in spite of the Bush. And we could classify pot as a vegetable, just like ketchup! Plus, a new market for the tobacco industry: they could sell off their holdings in “food.” Big Tobacco could survive!
”Kraft Foods' parent company Philip Morris Companies Inc. acquires Nabisco Holdings, a world leader in cookies, crackers and snacks. The Nabisco brands are integrated into the Kraft Foods business worldwide.”
Hmm, big tobacco is now feeding the children of America – that helps me sleep at night.
Micky-D’s and Burger Krap are part of the fast “food industry?” Next you’ll tell me Archer Daniels Midland Company actually produces food, rather than hybrid polymeric molecular chains of substances remotely related to organic matter (genetically altered or not).
I was going to list the (known) organic and inorganic matter in Campbell’s Mushroom Soup, but it’s been done before. I have this great soup cookbook with no mention of 95% of what’s on the Campbell’s list of wholesome ingredients. How did our forebearers ever survive?
Why do I keep returning? Why do you assume I ever left? I’m on a 36 hour nonstop project, and need YOU to entertain me during my brief breaks until it’s complete.
I’m worse than an engineer, I’m a consulting engineer in the black world, so deep in the annals of government, I’d have to kill you to tell you (it’s OK macaroni & cheese moms, it’s an inside joke, don’t panic - just a joke). We, in the government don’t actually kill anyone anymore – at least on our soil. They allow me the Carbonboy persona to keep me sane. But they watch me closely.
Oh I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Weiner. That is what I truly want to be-ee-ee. ‘Cause if I were an Oscar Meyer Weiner, everyone would be in love with me!
Food fight! -– Food fight!! -- Food Fight!!!
Hey Michael L, I did like the thread on Brats. I was born and raised in Sheboygan, WI – THE brat capital of the world. The ONLY way to make Brats is to soak them in water, get your real charcoal grill started and grill them, turning them with only your hands. Then let them simmer in beer, onions and real Wisconsin butter.
The only way to eat a Brat is as a double on a real Sheboygan Hard Roll. You are allowed only the following condiments: ketchup, pickles, onions (fresh and from the beer boil), mustard and lots of real butter. And it’s Miesfeld's Meat Market (see the 5th link).
http://www.bratwurstpages.com/bratrecipe2.html
http://www.bratwurstpages.com/bratrecipe2.html http://www.wisinfo.com/sheboyganpress/specialsections/progress/progressbrat2.shtml
http://www.wisinfo.com/sheboyganpress/news/archive/local_13476165.shtml
http://www.wisinfo.com/sheboyganpress/news/archive/local_13476165.shtml
Too bad my dead father is not around to have a brat with me over the holidays. He loved Brats.
Yeah, those darn “health activists” are a real darn threat to the good old USA. Who is their leader again – mmmmn, no name actually comes to mind, but I bet he’s some former heart surgeon that works for the Terrorist Group better know as the American Heart Association (funded by Cat Stevens I hear).
Fear not, even though Tommy Thompson is a lame duck (and a Wisconsinite) he will not allow the “health activists” to harm you. Agra-business will prevail and Kraft Marconi & Cheese (byproducts) will forever be available to the youth of this great country.
So every law suit challenging the junk food industry was lost – what’s your point? What’s needed is a class action law suit to actually force them to serve food again. But not to worry my libertarian engineer, it won’t happen until well after 2008.
Meanwhile, kids will just keep getting fatter, thanks to Campbell’s and Kraft (aka Philip Morris Companies) and we Americans will continue to be transfixed by the real terror threat to us all, as told to us daily by Fox News.
So I’m a troll, Mr. Brady. Hmm, I apologized twice, didn’t do any harm to all the folks that now hate me, and I care deeply about the children of American because their parents are, through sheer ignorance, killing them. Yup – I’m a troll alright.
“Do something about it,” you say. I am, right here and now:
Moms, stop feeding your kids crap, please.
Michael L, take the crap out of your receipts please -- you are a bad influence.
Let’s see – word for the day: satire, A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit.
Later Brady, my assignment is complete. I’m off to the green zone for a time. Wish me luck (or not). I’m beginning to like you.
The Food Nazi – aka carbonboy
Is there no place save from prosetylizing hippies? Sheesh.
I'm not even going to respond to that pile of steaming crap you posted.
But, carbonboy, let it be known:
1) We don't care.
2) See #1
3) See #2
&c., ad nauseum.
People will eat what they want to eat. People will beleive what they want to beleive. There is not much that you can say via the internet that will change people's minds, and taking an extremist tone (as you have in your previous posts), although popular among the liberal set at this point, tends to categorize you with the reactionary extremist freaks. Is it so hard to let people be? There are so many causes that you could be contributing the astounding amount of thought you've lavished on the comments section to that would move the cause forward and help people; yet you persist in spouting ignorant, vitriolic diatribes. Over a tiny bit of sodium.
The internet is about being helpful, not about attacking. If you wanted to be helpful, you would've posted a suggestion to try an organic cream of mushroom base rather than the Campbell's, or an organic vegetable broth. And why would you attack the chicken? You can get free range organic chicken that's *very* good for you at most stores these days.
Attacking is not welcome. Attacking will make people ignore you. Now go smoke some pot and relax, and leave the actual work to us.
-K
K, can we not malign irrelevant political views because of one idiot?
It's just food.
Good grief! It'd be interesting to see how much controversy the classic recipe for green bean casserole--complete with Campbell's cream of mushroom soup and a can of French's fried onion rings--would stir up.
--Anonymous#289
Ah, but this is the best darn thread in the whole of "Cooking for Engineers." I love all you hate mongers – you all, saturated fat, sodium and apple pie is what makes America so great! Such a compasssionate lot.
Oh, and I don’t smoke pot, that’s about as destructive as anything that comes out of the Campbell's. I just figure we should tax it.
Let’s see, what is an appropriate last statement for Michael’s "Cooking for Engineers" great all American Food?
“Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”
Well maybe not, if you factor in the “French Paradox.”
Those French folks eat every god-awful thing AND guzzle a bit of red wine and seem to be fine (until Micky-D’s came anyway).
So, if not that, then, what best summarizes soaking perfectly fine chicken breasts in a sodium solution (but not too long):
“Eat shit and die?”
Oh, given I’m this scumbag troll – there’s only one way to rid yourself of me – can you guess what it is?
I’ll give you a hint: don’t feed the troll. Only then will he go away.
Here’s a happy place: http://www.whfoods.com/index.html
Hmmm, real food!
TFN – from the green zone
Simply stunning. Can we cook something now?
Betty Crocker had no politics involved last I checked.
oh, please. I can't believe someone is as self-involved as mr anonymous. don't fill up a blog about cooking, which people visit in order to escape the politically charged world, with your egocentric ranting!
I am making this dish tomorrow, with a middle finger salute in honor of mr anonymous!
Okay, a few statements to start.
1.- I like Mike Chu's blog and I visit it on a regular basis. I'm too a kitchen enthusiast.
2.- I'm simpatethic with carbonboy's point of view. He's saying what's right, and not what's courteous or politically correct.
3.- I don't like dogmas, fundamentalism or integrism.
Why I like carbonboy's point of view? It's like mine, he's a conscious eater. carbonboy, you're noble, being concerned about your fellow citizen's health. There's no place for noble ones up north. Your ways may be wrong, tough.
I can see that in the US when someone has a different point of view, departing from the official one (or a clearer mind, understanding that ye olde american way fairy tale is basically a bunch of lies) is being bombarded, telling him that "if you disagree with something, shut your mouth, move on, disappear". That's no the-country-of-freedom-and-democracy behaviour. In this side of the world we choose to ignore those prepotent ones who yell out ideas instead of stating in. But desagreeing is okay! If we all think the same, there's no progress. Dissident ideas are necessary, you know.
BTW, carbonboy, as an empire's citizen, I agree with you that MacCrap, BurgerKrap, KentuckyFriedCrap and all junk food that you export worldwide is getting more and more young children tucked with saturated fats becoming candidates to obesity.
Junk food is corner stone to the american way. And you yanks keep on exporting your american-way-junk-food; you (or the bush's government) have not understand yet that american way is good for yanks and not for everyone else.
My point: all this discussion is futile, because junk food and saturated fats are necessary to udermine the empire's health, from the inside, and in a coupla hundred years we'll see massive deaths from sedentarism, obesity and other american way diseases.
Mike Chu, keep up the good work.
Anonymous-es: all point of view are valid (right or wrong). A bit of sodium now and then won't hurt no one; a bit of sodium now and then, starting from 3-4 years old, assuming a 80-year life expectance, is quite a great pile of (no, not the s word) Na (sodium). Healthy?
carbonboy: you're not alone out there, facing the wolves (or should I say the hawks?).
carbonboy: if you like healty eating, you've made a good choice; marry a healty eating woman, have lots of healthy children and pass on all your healthy-eating-way-of-life; they'll do the same to their own children, thus spanning a new breed of healty US citizens (I don't say americans, because americans are those who live in America, THE CONTINENT, not inside US borders).
I thought this was pretty bland. Very little flavor. I was disappointed.
Depending on the brand of cream of mushroom (condensed) soup, you may need to add additional salt to taste. As previously stated in the comments, Campbell Soup's Cream of Mushroom has a considerable amount of sodium, so I don't usually add more. If spiciness is more to your liking, add a dash of cayenne or chop up a jalapeno and sautee it with the onions. The second paragraph of the article has a few more ideas of how to bring more flavor to the dish - my person favorite is spinach with garlic and liberal amounts of garlic powder (not garlic salt) over the chicken.
Sheesh... Ronald McDonald is not actively trying to kill us. One Big Mac a year won't kill anyone. They aren't forcing anyone to buy their food. Attacking the vendors won't fix the problem, only changing people's eating habits will. And I'd just like to remind you all that it's important to have a little fun in your life. I'd rather be a bit pudgy and eat food I like than to suffer through food I consider terrible 24/7 to prolong my life for ten or twenty years. Not that I think healthy food is terrible, but I'm sure some do. Lighten up, all of you!
My girlfriend and I tried the Chicken Pot Pie and loved it. Your packets of information, specifically safe defrosting methods, are wonderful (I only pop things into the fridge after freezing them now). This, simply put, is a great site. Thank you.
Holy Moly! Why is everyone so angry?!?
I am a screaming liberal and this chicken dish is tasty. I had mine with broccoli in it. Anger is more unhealthy than sodium.
PS. Please don't refer to this low-sodium ranter as a liberal or left-winger too.
Here is the dictionary definition of a liberal. There is little mention of food choice.
Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.
Of, relating to, or characteristic of liberalism.
Liberal Of, designating, or characteristic of a political party founded on or associated with principles of social and political liberalism, especially in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States.
i can't believe that people get this worked up about a recipe. find something constructive to complain about.
its a easy recipe, pretty tasty too, but i think the chicken needs something extra...
I have a question, why the need to fry rice? seems like its not necessary
thanks for the recipe!
more important, now i can alter and reverse engineer it hehe
As an analytically minded person I'd find it more helpful if...
1 The Recipe Card were posted at the beginning of the post.
2 When ingredients are listed that they be bulleted.
3 Exact measurements were listed the first time any ingredient is mentioned in the text.
4 The recipe itself were broken in to clearly labeled steps.
5 Cooking specific terminology be a hyperlink or mouseover to a definition of the term.
Additionally, I've noticed some display issues with the site in different browsers and at different resolutions. To a software engineer, these simple flaws can be very distracting as you then immediately start pondering hy they're happening and what fixes could be implemented.
Please take these suggestions with whatever amount of salt you want.
PS
I find that happy eating and healthy eating can compromise for the best quality of life. I also don’t mix politics and food, like I don’t eat where I crap. Finally, changing the world through the internet is… it can’t happen. There’s nothing clever about it, it won’t work. It’s the 5th law, unbending and static, “no world change through the internet.”
I got to this page through a google search for Chicken and Rice...I got what I came for and appreciate that I was able to :)
As far as i know....food is food and sometimes it's comfort.eating this Chicken and rice a few times a year wont kill me any faster than playing in traffic.
Y'know, I bet starving kids in Nigeria would love to have that sodium-laden stuff, regardless of whether or not it killed them in the long run.
If I may make a note, this whole debate will lead to nobody changing their minds, everybody getting their hackles raised, a bunch of words best left unsaid and a number of blood pressures raised. Hell, this conversation may as well be as unhealthy as whatever you eat.
So, that being said, it doesn't MATTER how unhealthy you eat. You're going to die anyway. Now, later, in fifty years, in fifty seconds. Non-smokers get lung cancer. Do I promote smoking? No. Nasty-smelling habit, that. But I don't tell them they're idiots. They choose to die that way.
If I take the bus home tomorrow and die in a wreck, the Big Macs didn't effin' matter. Choose what you wish, eat what you like, live how you want, and die how you will. Ultimately, it ends the same regardless. I hate to be a downer, but the endless quibbling over something this trivial when it's not going to make a damn bit of difference either way. Go do something you LIKE instead of arguing about it.
If you like the recipe, use it. Don't if you don't. That simple. (No wonder the Buddist monks live for-bloody-ever. They don't STRESS about the small s***.)
OK, I was feeling a little frazzled and felt the need for some comfort food and this chicken and rice bake sounded like just the ticket. Of course, I had to tweak the recipe and method a little to accomodate the food I had on hand. No chicken thighs or drumsticks, but I did have 4 boneless, skinless breasts in the freezer.
No zucchini in the house, but poking in the freezer turned up 1/2 a bag of frozen sugar snap peas. Hmmm, what goes with peas ? Into the fridge for a couple of carrots which I cut on the bias about 1/4 inch thick. While in the fridge I noticed some leftovers - a cup of sauteed crimini mushrooms and a cup of lima beans (Lima beans are the only legume I don't really care for, but I figured I could hide them in this recipe).
Rice. I had brown, jasmine, sushi, and red japonica. I opted for the brown. Of course, brown rice takes longer to cook and more water than white rice, so I bumped the water up to 3 cups.
I pretty much followed Michael's method: sauteed the rice in butter, added the onion and garlic and then the other veggies a couple of minutes later. I sauteed this until the carrots started to soften. I diluted the canned soup with 3 cups of water then added a little thyme and sage and poured the soup mixture over the rice mixture.
Because I was using chicken breasts and brown rice instead of thighs and white rice, I was pretty sure the chicken would be done before the rice. I thought about give the rice a headstart on the stove top before adding the chicken but really couldn't decide how much of a headstart would be needed. 10 mins ? 15 ? 25 ?
So, I took the opposite approach. I inserted the probe from my Polter thermometer into the largest breast and pushed the breasts down into the rice mixture. Topped with a little garlic powder and paprika. I set the temp alarm to 160F and popped the pan into a preheated 375F oven.
After about 35 mins the alarm went off. As I had suspected, the chicken was done but the rice was still crunchy so I removed the breasts to a plate and tented them with foil while I returned the pan to oven to complete cooking the rice. After another 35 minutes, the rice was tender. I put the breasts back into the rice to reheat while the dish rested for 5 minutes. Very enjoyable and just what my body needed.
Anonymous # 1: Eating less and leading an active lifestyle is healthier than throwing out the fat binders and chicken skin....in other words, quit yer belly-aching; sanctimony is hard on the heart. Rather than rationing out the ounce of chocolate, concentrate on eating well and playing hard. Those of us who get off our butts have little to fear from a can of soup.
Yummy. I'm off to make this right now but i'll be using 2 cans of soup :P
Thanks for the recipe and remember what mama said, "You can't please
everyone" ( and why would you want too...)
i've read only half of these posts, but there seems to be a repeated theme:
those into their convenience food and good ol' american ways are taking a LOT of offense at an issue they claim should not be an issue at all. if it's such a silly debate, then why are your feathers getting so ruffled? apparently how one judges your eating habits does indeed have an effect on you.
campbells soups are indeed disgusting, and are hardly "nutritious" as marketing would have you blindly believe. have you ever looked at the ingredients? most of them contain Monosodium Glutamate (yuk), and a host of other scary ingredients, such as Partially Hydrogenated [insert rancid refined oil of your choice here].
but it's not just campbells soups, it's most anything with a substantial shelf life. if it can sit on a shelf for years and not rot, then something is sketchy. it's not exactly FOOD. it's chemicals. and yet - packaging and television bombards you with the lies that that box of chicken helper is oh-so nutritious.
and why do they bombard you? because they have to - continuously. if they stop, then one day you might actually start to think about what you're purchasing, and you might actually read the ingredients, and hell, you might actually go research them and start to read up on what you're eating, and HEAVEN FORBID maybe even develop your own opinions about what you're eating.
but, but... there's the FDA's food guide pyramid, and even doctors who say eating boxed shit and canned globs is fine, just as long as i take a laboratory extracted multi-vitamin (because it's no longer even necessary to get vitamins and minerals from their actual sources - fresh, whole FOOD).
it couldn't be that the FDA is a captalist organization whose allegiance serves to protect the interest of the corporations, NOT the consumer. if the FDA actually told you what is healthy and nutritious and what you should be eating to live a long, cancer-and-disease-free healthy life, then you would stop buying the products that litter 95% of the shelves in grocery stores, and so would Joe Blow, and his neighbor, and his neighbor, and their families and neighbors and so on and so forth. and soon those corporations would lose money and many of them would have to shut down, some of them might even have to cut into their profits to start producing better foods with higher quality ingredients, and this capitalist society would start to fall flat on its face. less people would get cancer, so the medical institution would start to lose money on kemo treatments and such. less people would develop heart problems, cholesterol problems, strokes, etc. less surgeries being performed, less PHARMACEUTICALS BEING SOLD, even less doctor visits all around.
this country would have to become a land of organic farmers to accomodate the skyrocketing demand from its people for actual WHOLE foods, which doesn't turn the mind-boggling profits that producing refined shit does (genetically-modified foods combined with large proportions of chemicals, preservatives, etc, in a hasty and careless manner = cheaper products = stupid profits).
but wait - there is an increased demand for organic foods. there are organic markets popping up everywhere, and i've noticed even my regular grocery store is selling foods labelled "organic." so our standards are indeed raising, and capitalism is evolving to keep up with it. right?
RIGHT.
that's why the FDA (your trusted buddy, remember?) has lowered the standards on what constitutes organic food, so that the same old companies that produce crap can now alter their image and actually legally put the word "Organic" on their products - and charge twice or three times as much, because we'll pay that to think we're eating healthy. currently, a farmer can use non-organic compost and whatever else shit they want to grow your "organic" food in, and still slap the label on the container - and you'll pay more for it. and this year, the FDA was trying to lower those standards even more, so that genetically-modified foods, and even foods bathed in pesticides could still legally qualify for the sought-after "organic" label. not to mention, a chicken that is allowed only FIVE TO TEN MINUTES A DAY outside of its coop (which is so small they can't even move around in) can legally be labelled as "free range" - the chicken, and its eggs. 5-10 minutes a DAY - and then it's back to sitting immobile for 23 hours and 50 minutes. (chickens and eggs labelled "free range" are about twice as expensive as their "inferior" competitors.)
IT'S ALL ABOUT SUPPORT THE CORPORATIONS SO THEY CAN GET THE HIGHEST DOLLAR FROM YOU. THE FDA COULDN'T CARE LESS ABOUT PROTECTING YOU, THE CONSUMER, FROM FRAUD, AND THAT YOU'RE STILL GOING TO DIE YOUNG FROM CANCER, ONLY NOW YOU'RE SPENDING MORE MONEY ON YOUR FOOD THAN EVER FOR IT, WHILE DECEIVING YOU INTO THINKING YOU'RE LIVING THIS HEALTHY LIFESTYLE. THE FDA IS A CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION, CONTINUOUSLY RESEARCHING HOW TO FRAUD THE AMERICAN PUBLIC WITHOUT YOU EVER FINDING OUT.
and how, oh HOW, do they get away with this, year after year? they get away with it by joining hands with commercial America and BLARING DISINFORMATION AND LIES AND WHATEVER ELSE THEY CAN DO TO DISTRACT YOU ON THE TUBE AND RADIO AND BILLBOARDS AND POSTERS AND CLEVER PACKAGING AND ADS IN MAGAZINES AND POP-UP SCREENS AND EVEN DOCTORS AND PHARMACISTS TO MAKE SURE THE NOISE NEVER EVER STOPS so that you don't ever stop to even consider doing a little research for yourself and finding out the truth.
Would it be ok if I make my own cream o' mushroom soup?
Thanks OP, simple recipe, and it was quite good. I used store brand cream of mushroom though since it had less calories/fat than campbells, the only gripe i have is that it says it serves 6 people. While the chicken does serve size, I find that - maybe because I'm asian, that the rice portion should be a bit higher than just one cup. But aside that, it was pretty good, I definitely would put a bit more add ins included green onions, MORE GARLIC!, tiny bit of lemon pepper, etc.
Also, for all the people that are arguing in this thread- first off, I really do think its dumb. So Cambells isn't healthy, well guess what? Unless you're living a total HEALTHY diet which includes no softdrinks, sodas, processed foods, canned foods, etc... almost nothing is really healthy anymore unless your going to use fresh ingredients all the time. Just moderate yourself, and you'll be fine.
And to the first commentor- seriously, get a life. This guy took his time and effort to make a webpage and provide people tips, recipes and information, and you have to go and call it a "dumbass page."
Yeah! Great website - just discovered it.
Chicken with rice! Great stuff! Me mudder used to make it all the time...can't wait to try this recipe...
Incidentally, for those concerned about sodium, fat, hypertension, high blood sugar, low blood sugar, gonococcylcardiovascularsyphillitic conjunctivitus, etc. etc. etc., I hate to tell you this but you've been dying since the day you were born. NOONE is gonna get outta here alive....!
WOW! If you live your life in fear and without being able to enjoy something as simple as chicken fat, white rice, and salt, you really aren't living! And like the last quote, we are all going to die, a few mildly poor health choices aren't really going to do much for the cycle.
Just a footnote on the Health Nazi debate. The CDC had to back off of the 400,000 death/yr figure recently... revising it down to the low 20,000 range. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,155639,00.html
All of this needs to be taken with a grain (if not a shaker) of salt. The life expectancy in the US continues to climb... which afterall is the bottom line. The increase in longevity (and this will be no shock to any true engineer) closely follows the development of food processing and the increasing use of pharmaceuticals. Imagine that! All of those people spending day after day laboring on production lines and in laboratories and they aren't just doing it for nothing afterall!
Lastly, I wasn't aware that there was such a thing as "inorganic" cream of mushroom soup. I wonder what such a thing would be made of? Language is important. I don't know how the opposite of processed is organic instead of unprocessed... but the fact is that if mankind hadn't learned how to process food there would be a lot less of us here now and we would have a lot bigger problems than what we are going to have for lunch. We would be wondering IF we were going to have lunch!
I came here looking for a baked chicken recipe but a political self-righteous rant broke out. If Mr. A (we all know what "A" REALLY stands for) doesn't like this site go to another one. One can reduce the chicken fat by taking all the skin off. I don't use cream of anything soups but if you choose to more power to you. I agree that anger is more unhealthy than salt. I prefer to use seasonings and slow bake chicken until it is falling off the bone. I prepare my sauces,etc. separately, but to each his own. Thank you for this site and keep up the good work for those who enjoy it. God bless all.[/b]
Just made this dish tonight, and it was lovely!
thanks, appreciate it.
I've made this dish twice modified for brown rice (using organic chicken, olive oil, organic spinach, and organic, low sodium cream of mushroom soup) and am making it again tonight as written above (but with the organic stuff). Whenever my husband says he likes what I make him for dinner, I make it again, and again...Thanks, much!
[b:ecf5c6a042] :shock: campbell's does make low sodium soups there cream of mushroom
has 470m.g per serving still hi but better then there regular[/b:ecf5c6a042]
Love cooking for engineers Mike, and loved the chicken dish too, just like mom used to make. I was a little offended by Ranter #2 though. As a pharmacist, I didn't realize I'd been promoting Campbell's cream of mushroom soup! Some people are just too funny.
why are there people arguing about food on here. get a fucking life losers. get laid, do drugs, eat shitty food, eat healthy food, believe in religion, hug a tree, but dont go get on ramdon websites hiding behind your computer in your little world pretending to have a voice pussy.
okay this is a comment for the faggots who post comments at 6:00 in the morning.. i really think you should get a life. whos cooking at 6 am? well i think this is just a recipe and there really is no need to diss food. so leave the food alone.
sharpton for president yall.. im outtie.. peace.
keep it real,
Pimped Paula
You didn't specify whether to use instant rice or what kind of the many kinds of white rice there is. That would have been helpful.
You can use long or medium grain white rice that has not been parboiled or precooked (such as instant rice) for this dish.
This made a huge batch of a somewhat uninteresting recipe. Not really worth the effort and ingredients.
I'm a fellow Cal engineering grad, and I've liked your site for some time, but this is my first comment.
I was wondering how you'd recommend including broccoli in a way that minimizes overcooking. My girlfriend recommended steaming it seperately, but I decided to compromise by adding it 20 minutes from the end of cooking. I'll let you know how mine turns out, but I wanted your advice as well.
by the way, the lasagne recipe turned out fabulous, even though I omitted the cream.
Good base recipe, added some curry powder, paprika, garlic powder to it, used cream of chicken (with herbs) and used broccoli, (put in mid way through so it didn't get mushy), and used both drum sticks and thighs. Turned out well needed a little more water but I think thats my fault for not measuring the water and just using the can of chicken.
Why can't everyone be nice to one another in forums?
Sigh.
If you want to adjust the recipe to make it a little healthier, just substitute the cream of mushroom for a can of crushed tomatoes, the white rice for brown or wild, and the butter for extra virgin olive oil. You could use whatever cut of chicken you want, or substitute it with beans.
There's no need to be mean. I try to maintain a healthy diet without being nasty to anyone.
peace.
I won't criticize the use of campbell's soup (although I don't use it) because, hey, some people just like to cook with the stuff.
The reason I can't eat this dish is because a friend made this in the dorm kitchen in college years ago with bone-in chicken and didn't adjust the cooking time. It came out, we were served and it was RAW. No one thought to toss it back in the oven or pan to cook longer. We just chunked it.
Since then just seeing this dish makes me gag 8|
I've been making a similar dish to this for many years now and found all the extra prep and additive suggestions interesting. I'll have to try some of them next time I make it. Just as a side note, try using ANY other condensed soup (even homemade) instead of cream of mushroom. I can't use anything mushroom in anything for dinner due to allergies. Try it with condensed chicken or celery soup. Yummy :)
Don't like all the butter? saute with veggie oil. Just remember a lil dab'll do ya
Can't handle salt ( like me)? DILUTE ... use less salt and more WATER.
Cook it covered instead of open-toppped to get the rice done quicker. OR bury the chicken in the rice and bake longer. Want nice browned chicken? put it on top of the rice mixture, just be aware it'll cook faster.
And just because I couldn't resist .... get the poli-sci discussion OFF a recipe forum. I'd like to think this is a place for suggestions or comments on the recipe and not the chemical breakdown and political ramifications of a certain brand of soup.
:D This is the funniest thing I've seen in a while! At the same time, I also eat healthy. But that still doesn't stop me from enjoying a few that are not good for me, like the chicken and rice casserole that is in the oven as I type ( that I made with campbells cream of mushroom soup). But sorry everyone, carbonboy is right. Open your eyes. Look at what your life really is, thats how you can enjoy it. And to the guy who said "if we didn't learn how to process things, there would be a lot less of us and we would have alot bigger problems..." .... , well, lets just say it made me laugh. ;) Peace and Love
Great reading. Will try the chicken and rice, sounds good a a bit different than the one I usually use.
BTW, on all the other discussions, I'm more interested in your opinion of the dish than all the other hog wash. After all the studies that have come out on this or that regarding the food we eat, I'm beginning to go back to the way Grandmother cooked. Fresh eggs, real butter, vegs from my garden.
Grandmother's generation lived to the 90's and 100's, never had a bunch of the allergies, stomach problems, weight problems, and all those other heath concerns that we are facing today. Of course they didn't sit on their tails all day long to watch the idiot box or play video games or look for some computer site where they could gripe about things instead of living life. They were out tending their gardens, feeding their animals and even sewing their own clothes.
Excuse me, got to go, want to move the water to my tomatoes. :)
Elaine
WOW. :shock: I just wanted an easy chicken & rice dish. I am trying it with low sodium chicken broth, bone in chicken breasts cut in 1/4's and followed the rest of the recipe using 1/2 butter & 1/2 olive oil. This seems healthy to me.
What a riot !!! Love this.
First time I've ever landed on this site, lol. Comment number one is fine, he's posting his opinion, I'm sure the cook can handle some criticism from time to time.
Laughed at the bigot comment, you guys rock !!
Engineers recipes, brilliant idea, only problem- is it's my idea !!! ( Had some similar thoughts, glad to see some guy has done it.)
Damn those stupid frigging women recipes, the Format is my bitching point, so unmanly like, you know- 3/4s teaspoon of this, combine b with a, tie your apron strings tight, bend over and check the oven temp one more fking time, blah, blah......etc. The way they list all the shit at the start, like - :P just trying to confuse people- 'secret womens' business', hahahaha...
Cheers til next time guys, keep the faith brothers.
Adam Australia
P.S. Dude, I wouldn't eat the chicken without browning it first in a hot pan and oil, -man, your basically dishing up boiled/broiled chicken, yuk...!! Get some colour into that thing. Lol.
Cyas.
Hi again,
after reading further i see that i misjudged(lol) first poster, ..you're a legend mate, dont let them name call you into silence.!!!
Love the joke about the "libertarian" and his big farmer ideology, hahahaaaa...funny and smart, not like others who can't stand the thought of not following the mindless herd over the cliff, the only real problem I have with you is that you're a "babyboomer".
Sounds like there's quite a few of that ilk posting here, lardass gluttonous babyboomers, --as a poster said, stfu and let them meet their self ordained destiny, lol.
See you in Africa.
P.S. God forbid you slight a 'babyboomer'. lol.
Hi sweeties......by the way...
CAN YOU DICKS STOP TELLING FIRST POSTER NOT TO COME TO THIS SITE. IT IS THE INTERNET -YOU CONTROL FREAKS.
HE'S ALLOWED TO VISIT THIS SITE -SO STFU. YOU DONT LIKE HIM POSTING HIS HONEST OPINION ON THE PUBLIC FORUM, MAYBE YOU NEED TO FU*CK OFF AND NOT VISIT THIS SITE, SEEMS LIKE YOU'RE THE ONES WITH THE PROBLEMS. NO ONE MADE YOU READ IT DID THEY? YOU JERKS JUST PREFER BS TO TRUTH, THAT'S YOUR 'BEEF', AIN'T IT?
P.S. Not everyone in the whole world has to like boiled (yuk) chicken and rice slop, topped with a can of crapbells "soup'. Sounds disgusting and probably tastes worse.
Put that in ya pipe and smoke it.
Adam Australia
Since i'm gluten-free and can't eat wheat, i would have to alter this recipe anyways. Does anyone have a suggestion to alter the can of mushroom soup for something homemade?
If there was a previous answer to my question, i missed it due to all the political crap above! Sorry.
This blog is the funniest thing I've read all day. I LOL. I was just looking for a recipe to make with the chicken breasts and brown rice. The recipe included here is great, basic American fare, 4 or 5 varieties of this basic recipe were lining the table at every church potluck I went to as a kid. However, although the criticism of the first poster was rude, I agree with everything he says. As a granola cruncher, hippie, health food fanatic, ex-vegan, ex-macrobiotic since the 60's, I have gone around the block a few times over food issues and have come out at the age of 54 as ultra polite and tolerant about other people's food, which has left me with a choking sensation most of the time I'm eating with other people. So, hearing the first poster spew was immensely gratifying, albeit vicariously, and I thank him/her for spewing my repressed expressions.
Sometimes things have to be overstated to counteract the prevailing bland and passive attachment to established norms. Let's call a spade a spade, this recipe is high fat and high sodium. I would love a healthier alternative - probably not the goal of this website, eh?
Thanks to the contributor of this recipe however, I'll probably go make it because we're hungry and we need to eat soon. And there's something comforting about remembering those church potlucks.
wow
I thought car forums were full of controversy and flame wars...I guess food is just as capable of inciting emotional and political outbursts!
I personally love fat and dead animals in my diet. My wife does not so much, so I always find a happy medium and still manage to make delicious food.
I will probably try this, but I'll use EVOO instead of butter, of course. I may use some fresh mushrooms and buttermilk instead of cream of mushroom soup. We never eat white rice, but maybe some wild rice, brown rice, or even barley would be great!
Keep posting your favorite fat-American recipes! That's where flavor comes from...let the rest of us sort out how to adapt it all to our lifestyles!
To all those people who say, you're going to die anyway, or everything is going to kill you, I wish to counter that. It just aint so. Natural whole food contains phytochemicals and substances that promote health and foster an appetite for more natural foods, the precise thing that your body needs. The chemicals that produce flavor enhancement are processed to create a dependence and craving of that type of high flavor. People who eat a lot of chemically flavored foods find whole natural food bland Dependence on artificial flavor is an addiction folks. You are not going to be hungry for a salad or broccoli after eating a chemically induced flavor-ful meal. you'll probably be more hungry for a Coke or a beer. if you don't think Campbell's cream of chicken soup is flavor enhanced, read the ingredients.
:P
Aw come on, let's just have a sense of humor about this, I probly will make this recipe or one like it. Anyway, eating healthy may not make you live any longer, just make you FEEL like you are living longer! (Or the ones around you that have to put up with you)!! Have fun.
Interesting variety I've had with this recipe, substitute the water in the cream of mushroom mixture with orange juice. It's a bit of a different taste, but one of my favorites.
If you're gluten free, try Health Valley cream of mushroom soup, no wheat and no gluten :)
Have you noticed how Michael seems to ignore all the incoming artillery and calmly offers suggestions to people who have questions about the recipes?
Aren't professional people supposed to exercise a little self-control?
I tried to consider the entire range of opinion in the blog, so I departed from the recipe. Since there are apparent flaws in the recipe as offered, I took the chicken out of the oven after 25 minutes, knowing that at that point it would be "half-baked".
Then, I flamed it for about 2-3 months. Then I let it stand for five minutes before serving. Unfortunately, the little pile of cinders didn't look very appetizing, and it certainly wouldn't have served six people. So,...
We went out for chinese food. I asked the waiter if they had any low sodium soy sauce. He said, "I'm sorry, we don't." I said "that's okay."
Then I put a little bit of the regular soy sauce on my dinner. It was pretty good.
You know, this is Michael's site. He could blast away at the crap-slingers if he wanted to. Maybe he explains somewhere why he doesn't (I haven't seen it).
My guess is that he is a professional and has learned an important lesson; as Thumper the Rabbit told Bambi: "If you can't say nuthin' nice, then don't say nuthin at all!"
Bravo, Michael !! Hats off to you!
I'm not an engineer, just an ordinary law student. Maybe that's the reason why I love this website and Michael's analytical approach to cooking. I concur with TeaPot. Hats off to Michael!
As regards the major controversy that evolved around the innocent oven baked chicken and rice: why do some people seem to get so emotionally charged when they have discussions? yeah, we all agree that organic ingredients are better. and canned food, booo. but some of us can compromise. or make exceptions to the golden rule. or talk about it reasonably. since we all seem to love analytical cooking, why not consider analytical thinking?
I just tried this recipe and I think it was amazing.
To the first poster:
Go kill yourself.
Why all this BS for a recipe? Whomever thought of it, IT'S A GREAT DISH!! There's ways around things but I see nothing wrong with this recipe and it tasted wonderful. I just happened to use Instant rice instead of regular rice.....Does that mean I'm gonna die faster because I use Instant Rice??? If so, I had a good life and I got to try a wonderful Chicken and Rice dish. ;)
in search of a recipe for the old standard comfort food, this site appeared. Politicizing aside, try this:
brown rice instead of white (maybe some other grains mixed in)
Amy's Organic cream of mushroom soup
brown the (organic) chicken parts
increase the water (I increased to 3.5-4 cups)
use a combination of water, organic chicken broth and a spot of milk/cream
add thyme, parsley & black pepper
a bit of salt (yes, have to add some because soup is low sodium)
increase the garlic and skip the onions (if this is to your taste).
cook in an iron skillet
Such comfort for a rainy day in the Pacific NW!
I increased the amt of rice from 1 c. to 1.5 c. (thus, the additional liquid)
Cooking time increased to about 1.5 hours (don't worry about overcooking chicken, esp if using bone-in, which I did).
EVVO instead of butter...but, who cares, use either.
Happy person in PNW.
How can you in good concience post a recipe with ANY sodium in it whatsoever? Don't you know that it is harmful to the human body and that if you so much as even know about sodium you will DIE?
It's a commonly known fact that the human body requires no sodium and that you even reading about sodium here is causing your BP to shoot through the roof and your children to be born malformed! The horror!! We must act now to stop the senseless distribution of sodium! JUST SAY NO!!!
[b:c71d9e013b]"We like us some white rice, canned soup, and fatty chicken. And if you don't like THAT, you can always go to someplace in Africa where all you've got to worry about if your nose falling off from the BO."
[/b:c71d9e013b]
That is why you racist American bastards have people shooting the hell out of you in schools. You can't even talk about food without making racist comments. Wonderful.
I think it's a good recipe, it could be substituted with mildly precooked brown rice, and better-than-condensed cream of mushroom, but I like the recipe, it's nice and easy.
Hi CfE,
Good recipe. I have been making the same thing since my mother tought it to me as a kid, but we used whatever vegetable was on hand, not just zuchini. I think I've even had it with canned black olives at one point. I've had it with cheese, with ham or bacon added, etc. I like it with frozen lesieur peas best.
For the health nuts, or those needing to control cholesterol or sodium:
Campbells makes a low sodium version, and a "healthy" version of this soup.
Remove the fat and skin from the chicken before adding to the dish. You could even use breast meat, however the dish will be more bland.
The butter isn't really that much for the amount of food you are making, so stick with the butter. However, you can use olive oil too, but I don't think it tastes as good in this dish.
I don't advise using any of the "brown" rices, as they don't absorb as much liquid as white, and the cooking time would be different. Who wants undercooked rice with overcooked chicken?
-dr
Tried this dish and it turned out well. Additions to this recipe- chopped baby carrots, portabella slices, cayenne pepper. Substitute Lipton Onion Soup (envelope) in place of the Campbell's soup.
Oh, and posters (you know who you are) life is too short to argue about trivial stuff.
...Live, Love, Eat!!!!!! :)
:lol: [b:cbcca39f11] when I came across this page I thought that with the heading [u:cbcca39f11]cooking for engineers [/u:cbcca39f11]would mean that it would have an intelligent discussion page. I was quite astounded that people would get so vocal over a simple chicken dish :shock: ah well I guess there is nothing as funny as people
I will just cook the dish as it sounds as though it will be quite tasty.......
thanks for the recipe[/b:cbcca39f11]
There isn't a thing wrong with this dish. It is versitile and simple. Many people I work with don't know the first thing about cooking rice, I think this would be an easy dish for them. If sodium is a concern, it is easy enough to adjust in this dish.
I am a Nutrition Educator. There are no bad foods. What is bad is lack of proper portion control, and lack of exercise.
The French eat some of the most fattening foods in the world, yet as a population they are slimmer then us here in the US.(it should be noted that as some of them are adopting western customs, they are catching up to us). They did a university study in Philly on this very issue. They found that the French eat much smaller protions. Imagine that folks!
I would rather have the "full fat" version of certain foods I love,and just eat a smaller portion.
I can't believe there's an entire website of adults bickering back and forth because of one chicken recipe. I wonder if the first guy spends all of his time visiting every website with recipes, looking for bad ingredients?
My, oh my, I came on browsing the net for an easy chicken and rice recipe to prepare for my family and I am astonished at the language and bickering that has gone on over a recipe. There is a quick fix to this apparent dilemma: if you know what you like to eat then eat what you like; if you don't like the ingredients in a recipe then don't eat it. How hard is this? No matter how you "slice" it, people will eat what they like not matter the ingredients, sodium level, or name on the package. There are like so many more things in life that our attentions and energies can be focused on.
I am teaching my 4 yo to cook and chicken and rice is one of his favorite foods this recipe looks great and simple for him to try (with help of course) and i love the format of your "recipe card" I will defintly be coming back to cooking for engineers thanks!!!!
Oogie mama
lilcraftystar.blogspot.com
I just wanted to say.....
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THIS WEB SITE!!!
Keep up the great work!!! :D
this is my zillionth time making this dish. love it.
oh and yea...me no health issue!
balance people...balance...
Added more veges ~ AND utilized organic, low-sodium mushroom soup... Thank you again for the recipe (and site!)
On another note ~ guest "Brady" ~ are you single?? =)
Tried this your way and it was wonderful. also did it a second time using cream of chicken and adding a can of mushrooms, I reduced your water by a half cup and added sour cream and chive it was heavenly.
My two cents on the great debate: I grow up on red beans and white rice, chicken every other day and lard bisquits smothered in bacon fat gravey. Our meat was cured with salt and alot of meals of liver and onions became more paletable because of a healty dose of salt. I am 89 years old and am healthy as a hourse.
Hi. Thanks for this easy, wonderful, family-size recipe. A Western-sort of chicken pilaf. My family loved it. Had it with lots of leafy salad with juicy cherry tomatoes on the side. It's only unhealthy if you ate the whole pan of chicken-rice by yourself. Perhaps the first poster thought it was a single serve and thus was aghast at the amount of salt and fat?
doesnt matter what we eat, it's all about proportions and in moderation.
we all know 'fat' tastes good! ;)
i always make love to my wife after a high fat meal. just be sure you switch position so both of you benefit from burning off the calories, thats right, let her be on top. i recommend that fore-play is used......during fore-plays, our bodies generates heat (a few degrees higher) which effectively burns even more calories! i once calculated that i burned 5000 calories during one session. but i must warn you, every time we experienced an 'orgasm', we lose a brain cell (for those that experienced multiple orgasms, i recommend that you cut your love-making in half). in addition, some of you might contract std if you dont know your partners (so make sure to put protections on those erections)! and finally, losing calories this way can be very unproductive if u dont intend to have children.
anyways, enjoy what u like, but in moderation!
Attack of the Canned Soup Nazis!
As has been said before, "Lighten Up, Francis." :P
There are plenty of good tasting butter substitutes available to eliminate the butter issue. Most of them have enough sodium to satisfy you butter junkies and they are otherwise very healthy. :) However, the rice is just white starch that devolves to fat and increases bad cholesterol levels. If you prefer to let your eating habits shorten your life span or make you uncomfortable with weight related diseases like diabetes or heart problems, then ignore what I've said. However, don't critisize me, and others, for trying to help you live a more healthy life. We say what we do because we care about humanity. That's not negative or cruel. It's a family value.
Wow. I'm not going to critisize your desire to help others, but not fully understanding the facts and then telling people that X or Y is the most healthful way of eating isn't helpful in the long run. The problem with butter substitutes is that they are in general unhealthful. There are a few on the market which do not include partially hydrogenated fats, but most still contain trans fatty acids. Studies are beginning to show these are worse than the saturated fats found in butter (and some scientists are calling for reanalysis of saturated fats in general).
White starch does not "devolve" into fat. White starch or fats in general don't increase your bad cholesterol either. The human body gets energy just like almost all living organisms on the planet. I don't remember the exact process (which means I'll be doing a google search on this topic and reading for the next half hour) but it involves ATP and breaks down sugars into waste products and extracts energy. This energy, if there's too much, can then be stored for long term storage by being built into fat molecules by the body. Same goes for fat - the fat you eat is not the same fat being stored in your body - it's broken down into it's parts and energy is released and then if not consumed by the body is then recombined with building blocks (other food you've eaten that's been broken down) into fat for long term storage. It's not the white rice that becomes fat, it's eating too much and having too high of a caloric intake for your level of energy consumption that causes the body to produce fat.
Your sarcasm and defensive part of your post doesn't contribute to the conversation and may be why it's so hard to change people's attitude and misunderstanding about certain foods.
I dont normally comment and I am from New Zealand. But let me tell you, there are worse things then this recipe, believe me, at least he didnt say buy ORGANIC!!!
Do you know there are farmers that sell deformed carrots as organic?
You think you have compaints America, try ORGANIC!!!
Oh and by the way caged eggs ARE better than free range. They are cleaner. Everything ORGANIC has diseases and are dirtier!!!
Greenies as we call them in NZ are fukin '' mad mate!
Just substitute LOW SODIUM soup & brown rice to healthy it up!
I have to say already that I am loving this website. I have learned so much and seen so many excellent recipes. I don't know what I want to try first, but I will be trying this chicken and rice recipe in the next week or so for sure.
This nutzoid talk is why I left Ca in the first place. Everyone has an opinion there and they think it's their duty to wave it in your face. We live on a farm and we eat organic. Hells bells we eat what she raises and I kill. It tastes great. So does this recipe. All this talk about salt and fats and taste is BS. The healthiest people on the planet eat processed foods, just look at their size and longevity.
Me, I like our local stuff, but a big mac or KFC once in a while won't kill me and satisfies those caveman taste buds. I have to admit though, KFC more than once a year is too much for me. It's good for colon cleansing though.
Grow up, go outside, get a life.
I just made this using a can of coconut milk instead of the mushroom soup, it worked out quite well (rather differently flavoured of course).
I just tried this recipe but used a can of LOW sodium cream of mushroom soup. I substituted the white rice with brown rice and sauteed it in olive oil. I added frozen spinach instead of zuchini. I don't mind it it takes more than 20 minutes, the prep time wasn't so bad. Once you put it in the oven, that's it... you just wait till it's ready. By the way, I have three kids, one in high school, one in junior high and a three year old. They really liked the casserole. Thanks for the recipe, keep up the good work. :)
Hi, I'm a fish person and I'd love to make this delectable dish with fish and hence, oven baked fish with rice. Do you reckon I should change the baking time? Because fish cooks faster than chicken. Or should I put the fish fillet at the bottom most of the baking dish so it'll cook last? Please advise, thank you.
....change the baking time
oh dear, absolutely. fish an hour at 375'F sounds like 'petrified'
I think you could easily cobble up a very good 'knock off' of this recipe for fish. my attempt would go something like:
ensure all the ingredients other than fish are 'hot' before inserting fish and putting into oven.
bake time _max_ 20 minutes - I'd be checking at 10 for doneness.
consider cream of celery with fish vs. cream of mushroom..... has a 'fresher' flavor.
cooking with soups is pretty classic guys!
campbell's is particularly versatile because it is condensed, so you can control the consistency, and it makes a great sauce with vegetables.
for a recipe like this where you don't need condensed soup (note that they added water), you can also use low-fat chicken stock which tastes great!
kudos to everyone who got in the kitchen and tried it out!
hi michael, may i know what were the dimensions of the oven pan that you used? =D also, you said that you used only 1 cup of rice.. but is that enough to serve 6 pax? =D
It was a 9x13-in. pan. 1 cup of rice was enough because the rice comes out pretty rich afterward. You'll probably want to serve a side dish too (like a salad) - this is just one course.
Excellant
I like to tweak this recipe by using a homemade mushroom cream sauce of 3 T butter, 3 T flour, the sauteed mushrooms and onions, a cup of lowfat milk and 3 cups of chicken broth. I brown the chicken in my cooking pan and toss the excess fat then pour 1 cup short grain brown rice over the chicken and put my sauce on top of that. My version cooks in about an hour and a half. Today I added finely chopped fresh herbs for a little flavor.
It's not really low-fat or particularly quick, but I'm not particularly fond of the taste of condensed soup, and I think I've got this recipe about as healthy as it's ever going to be.
You don't have to use butter or a butter substitute at all in this recipe. You can put the rice in the bottom of the baking pan and, having mixed all your liquid ingredients together (whatever you choose them to be), pour them over the top of your rice, then place the chicken.
I just have one thing to say to the Food Nazi/carbonboy:
You call Wisconsin the bratwurst capital of the world? Do you know where bratwurst actually comes from? It's a delicious German sausage I used to love as a kid (yes, I ate heaps of them, and my arteries are probably hardening as we speak, at the ripe old age of 27). The real way to eat them (if there is one) is grilled, on a brotchen (small round hard roll that only covers about 1/3 of the wurst), smeared with good brown German mustard. I have never seen a German eat one any other way, nor have I eaten them any differently.
Oh, and those things they make in America taste absolutely nothing like the real thing. Just had to put my two eurocents in.
I want to make chicken and rice like my mom made and found this online - found it helpful and then I read the comments.
People should be nice - or line or anywhere else.
As my mom (who made the best chicken and rice) always said -
if you can't say anything nice - don't say it all.
I appreciated the recipe and directions.
Thanks!
WOW!!!!
this is something similar to what my mom has been cooking for years, and i've always loved it.
ever since i got my cast iron skillets i've been looking for stove-top to oven recipes. i can't wait to try this when i get home :)
This whole page is funny!!! I thought engineers were supposed to be smart! Ya'll sound like a bunch of workaholics who need to get a hobby, don't look for help on recipies if you are just going to bash them!
If you don't have anything nice to say, please shut up!!! :P
I am ninety three years old, and the last ten of them have been pure misery. I blame it on my wife, she's still around, for cooking all that healthy food to get these extra years on our life. Will let me tell ya sonny, if I had it all back, I would have eaten much more with butter, cream of mushroom soup, bacon, and what ever you name....go for it, because the extra years that you gain aren't worth diddley. Keep up the good work, Michael!
This recipe is very good. As for all the crazy stuff about the sodium, it is up to you which kind of creamed soup you use. Thre is low sodium and if you go to your local health store, you can even find sodium free!!! I used Jasamine rice and salt substitute and it turend out very well. Thank you for the recipe!
If I was to cook this with chicken breast, how should I adjust the cooking time? I live alone and don't bake chicken much, so its not worth it to buy thighs and drumsticks for this recipe alone.
love this site by the way
This has got to be the best thread on CFE. Thanks! Still won't eat this crap ever!
Carbonboy
www.carbonboy.com
Eat right , exercise,................ DIE ANYWAY!!!!!!!
I love it what a link that other option with the heathy one was rubbish.
just eat drink and be happy love it love it love it and don't forget to enjoy AND GET A LIFE BE GLAD YOU CAN HAVE ANY FOOD.
Thank you for the great recipe! I did use the Campbell's 98% fat free soup, whole grain brown rice and added 8 ozs of reduced fat sour cream. I skinned the chicken thighs. My family loved it.
I am entertained by the critics that turn a recipe into a political issue to voice their negative comments. There are some people that have NOTHING TO DO!! GO COOK and change the recipe to fit your health issues and leave the others alone. You poor negative person, with the chip on your shoulder looking for a fight, you have an anger issue. No fight here, just a good recipe offered by a kind soul. What a world we live in today!!! Everyone interested in great recipes, remember when you find someone that has to gripe about any and everything, they have burdens that are weighing them down so offer a prayer for them and their needs. Be kinder than necessary; everyone is battling some kind of problem.
THIS RECIPE IS GREAT, but experiment with your ideas and ENJOY!!!
The first anonymous poster is rude, sanctimonious, and obnoxious. Hey, its his choice. Must be a really happy, healthy sort of individual. Not!!! Takes his wages from the taxes contributed by actual productive self reliant working people. Not surprising, probably thinks he's entitled. His post evoked numerous responses, some angry. some well intended, and some just amazed that he has nothing better to do with his time...thats right working for the government and on his break. The problem with our country and world is not fat and salt laden food, big corporations and profits, but rather people like him who use/mis-use the valuable productive resources created by others for their own personal defecation. Personally, I hope he never reproduces (he probably is inclined in quite the opposite persuasion) and wish he would quit wasting what is left of the oxygen available to rest of us on this planet.
Chu thanks for the recipe post and blog.
I absolutely loved the recipe! I loved the thorough directions, and the pictures!(I'm a visual person, so I enjoy pics to help me make sure I'm doing it right!). I will be checking this site for my future recipe needs because this recipe was so yummy!
Making this recipe now; still not sure what all the sodium fuss is about though. I used 8 chicken thighs and removed the skin before adding them to the pot.
No matter how many times I do the math, one can of soup across a number of servings doesn't seem like a problem, since there's no other salt in the dish besides a tiny amount in the butter.
Really liked the recipe as soon as I saw it... a nice mix of risotto-style preparation with one-pot-no-damn-stirring simplicity. For increased laziness I used parboiled rice and whatever vegetables were in the fridge, in this case a big carrot and half a red pepper. Also added a dollop of chili powder and mixed in the garlic powder because I wasn't paying attention to the recipe.
Unless I forget about the pot and leave it in the oven overnight I'm sure it will be great. Thanks !
Yep, it was great. After all the sodium debate, though, it ended up needing a tiny bit more salt. One can of soup across ~6 servings really isn't that much salt per serving I guess.
This message board was hilarious to me...I was just looking for that all- american creamy and comforting chicken rice recipe that I enjoyed as a child. I don't eat something like this very often and sometimes out of memory just want to revisit an old classic like this. It's a great cold weather comfort food. It's definatley important to be concerned with nutrition, but I must say that guy from 05' must have just had a bad day. I bet you he secretly eats it on a regular basis! :)
As most I came here for a chicken and rice recipe and got much more, including some goods laughs.
What lames worrying about what other people are doing with their lives.
What the hell is the point of living if all you do is worry about dying! Religious nuts are the same.
Everything in moderation seems to be the key for me. I guess if you cant practice such restraint, then abstaining altogether may be best for you.
:lol: wow...just looking for a specific chicken with rice recipe, this has got to be one of the most entertaining things I've read in a while...I'm sure that the health nuts will crucify me on this one, but...about eight years ago there was a product (maybe betty crocker) that in one box had rice, sauce, etc. all you had to add was chicken...does anyone else remember this? I would love to make my own version, as it's no longer on store shelves. It had a commercial with grandmas complaining about how quick and easy it was...help?
Just glancing on this site some of you must know about using ghee instead of regular. It has a higher smoke point, so less trans-fats.also most (or all if your good at making a batch yourself) impurities and water is absent from it. Plus the flavor and bouquet will make most not to want regular butter again. check out sites on making some, after a batch or two you'll get the hang of it. Oh a neat thing about Ghee is it lasts months without refrigeration! (some say years)
Recipe looks great. i love the site setup and the table of direction of ingredients at the end. that was very nice. and you can't go wrong if you following it.
to the other lonely retards... at 6am? lol that's the site's time it's not 6am everywhere at the same time anyway.. you need to try hard and start thinking...
and maybe people in a cooking class, or college or holiday or any occasion could be cooking at ANY time.
6am... kinda sounds like cooking, um.. BREAKFAST for a lot of people.
Thanks for this take on an old recipe. Think I will experiment with it some tonight. Love the blog! I make your beef stroganoff regularly.
I used this the other day - thank you it was nice
I reallly don't like eating chicken on the bone, so I'm wondering about using chicken breasts or chicken tenderloins. I know they'll cook faster than with the bone in, so I wonder if I could just put them in frozen to slow down their cook time.
off the bone will cook a bit faster - I would recommend cooking the rice/liquids longer in the pan before assembling and putting in the oven vs. using frozen pcs.
If you dont like it, dont eat it. I on the other hand LOVE my double cheeseburgers from Burger King and LOVE mommas home cooked meals. You dont have to eat it, so why you so uptight about it? Go home and make yourself a salad.
Food = politics y'all! It's true!
Goodness, I scroll down and see a huge flamewar tangent going over several years. The internet is always amazing in the tangents any subject can bring.
Definitely a basic recipe that needs modification to shine. I just jam a lot of onions, garlic, carrots, potato, mushrooms, etc and chicken, go heavier than one cup of rice (I prefer short grain), add a little basil and what not. The basic recipe is a great start, just as long you have chicken+moisture+rice+vegetables+spice you have something to eat.
The suggestion of using a substitute for the cream of mushroom is good. Maybe even just some diluted cream.
just scrolled thru this L-O-N-G thread, and was VERY entertained. just threw 3 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts over risotto rice and dumped a can of store brand low sodium cream-of-mushroom + one cup milk over it. skipped the in-pan veggies, i like em' separately. its in the oven now, and i think its gonna be good. i may try for cream-of-tomato nex time for variation. thanks for an interesting read everyone. peace! :D
What's interesting is why such a logic-based group would respond to someone who is clearly a troll. (Google it if you're not familiar with the internet usage.) Illogical.
Only other thing is I count more ad hominem attacks as coming from the right than the left but that's besides the point.
Neat recipes, by the way. And many easily tweaked to make them lower in fat, higher in good carbs, lower in salt, should that be your cuppa.
First, this is a great website, and I refer to it all the time - I have it bookmarked for those moments when I say to myself "Now what am I going to do?" Thanks very much!
Second: When you are in a car wreck, when you are hospitalized, when you are in extremis, what's the first thing the medical professionals do? SALINE SOLUTION!!! That's right, salt!
I'm going to keep a supply of this chicken handy for the next traffic accident I come across - "Excuse me, Ma'am, have a little of this chicken; it'll help you live longer."
Ignore the trolls; keep cooking!
For what it's worth, I couldn't read completely through all of the controversial comments due to a bad heart from eating the wrong food all my life. :P My two cents; for what it's worth, is if you want to try and get people to change, just post a healthier version and let them know if they want less sodium and fat, try this. No need to condemn or make anyone feel like a lemming. Thanks for all of the nice comments and suggestions to the original poster. Have a great day! :)
Make sure you use a pan that is big enough to get the chicken and rice evenly spread out. Otherwise the rice will be undercooked and some parts of the chicken will still be raw/pinkish.
:lol: HOLY CRAP. You just can't get on any site that permits feed-back without a war going on!!! Guess that's the fun of it huh? 8|
Well, it's simple, yummy, and just like mom used to make. What could be so bad about that? (I'm sure you could come up w/ something...)
Thank you
For cryin' out loud, this is a cooking blog. Not a political blog and certainly not an invitation for anyone to be rude. If you do not like the recipe, go to another site. The internet seems to have become one big haven of bullies. Check this out, mr. anonymous:
https://majicmarc.wordpress.com/2008/01/08/jerks-on-the-internet/john-gabriels-greater-internet-dickwad-theory/
JGGIDT...Google it if the link doesn't come through.
Please go away. Oh, and thanks for almost ruining my hunt for a freakin' recipe.
[/img]
I LUV LUV LUV your Recipe Card format!!! Hopefully, I can make sense of cooking and my Husband will be happy (well, happier..I think we're doing okay so far..); but this is a site HE will be grateful for. [Oh, and my engineer father, too, probably!] My cooking husband calls himself an engineer, but he's actually kinda normal! HA!
This is THE site for me!
May I say...THANK YOU
P.S. Confirmation Code is hilarious. enjoying this site even more!
Wow, flaming flamers :)
I'd just like to quote some Plato.
"Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance"
I got the above quote from the "Eat Dangerously Cookbook", written
by two fine resisters . . Lewis & Velloso. B)
I made the oven baked chicken last night and it turned out just like the picture. I will be using your recipes in the future. Reading the comments is great fun!
To the Chef, sorry for the idiot who has to be overly critical over a chicken recipe. To the guest Brady, thanks for the great comments. Very refreshing to see an intelligent individual who I agree with whole heartedly! ;)
Ah trolls. Can't live with them, can't live...with them... Totally making this recipe tonight because it sounds delish.
I know I'm being repetitive here somewhat, but eating the same thing all the time, no matter what it is, is really the problem. Your body gets dependent then when you eat something else and your body reacts it seems bad but it's actually just your body disliking the single-dimensional diet you subject it to. Hence why when I'm hungry, I eat, and listen to what my body is craving.
When you have a good balanced diet: what your body asks for = what your body actually needs, therefore, nom.
I’ve been a fan of this web site for years & never bothered to read any comments. Some of the comments are not only offensive but also open to argument. As a physician (MD) and rice lover, I have some opinions. I’ve made the dish with both white and brown rice- tasted better with white rice, meaning Uncle Ben's converted rice, which is parboiled before packaging. Many doctors and nutritionists insist that brown rice is superior to white rice, especially for diabetics. When asked for details they say that it has a lower % of starch and lower glycemic index. That makes sense because white rice is made from brown rice by milling off the hull and germ, which have less carbohydrate. However, that's not the whole story. Parboiled rice (boiled before the hull is milled off) is different in texture and content from other forms of white or brown rice. People have parboiled rice in Asia for thousands of years.
My wife and I grew up in different continents eating rice almost every day. We like to fry the rice in a skillet, usually with olive oil, onions and garlic, producing a very firm chewy rice (if we use Uncle Ben's). It’s at the other end of the texture spectrum from sticky Japanese-Korean rice. When I looked up the glycemic index of various rices, I was surprised to find values all over the place - most references say only "white rice" or brown rice". However the carbohydrate content of different rices, e.g. long-grain, medium grain, fragrant, short grain, pigmented (purple) rice varies greatly. If you look for the glycemic index of Uncle Ben's long grain rice, it is variously given as 41-45, less than almost all white and brown rices. Brown rice must be cooked much longer and even still doesn't produce the texture that we like. Uncle Ben's costs more but is superior in glycemic index and can be stored for longer periods of time. For most people, the critical variables are the network of diet and genotype and exercise. We can change two important variables, diet and exercise and can adjust the amount of calories, fat etc that we eat. I don't mean only running or group exercise, or even only aerobic exercise. Dancing is one of the very best and most reinforcing exercises but we should learn it when young. All kids should be indoctrinated into regular exercise (can be cycling or dancing) for life. It will let them eat more, they will feel better, and exercise produces modest improvements in brain function (only if you keep it up). My wife and I eat the same food. In the 50 years since we've been married I've lost 25 lbs and she has gained 30, although I eat much larger quantities than she does.
Eating large amounts of commercially canned foods will give you significantly higher blood and tissue levels of bisphenol A which is probably more harmful than most plasticizers, but occasional intake of canned foods doesn't seem dangerous to adults. Those of us who work in labs know that you can't get pure water if it's stored in any plastic container- the plasticizer leeches out. It must be stored in glass. We all have lots of plasticizer in our bodies but we are bigger and living longer than our grandparents (my grandparents were farmers and ate virtually no commercially canned foods or foods stored in plastic). Unfortunately many organic foods are produced by factory farms nowadays who aren't scrupulous about these issues either. So go easy on plastic containers, including water bottles- plasticizers are probably more dangerous to children than adults but we don't know for sure. There are many big differences between rodent nutrition and human nutrition- rodents with chronic diseases benefit from dietary antioxidants; humans do not (the sole exception is age related macular degeneration). If you are sedentary or have hypertension, use low sodium soups.
So keep up your good work Michael. Keep health issues in mind, but don’t go overboard. Experimental studies of human nutrition are few and mostly very short term; current data suggest that the so-called Mediterranean diet is best for 80% of humans, but in practice some forms of it contain excessive salt. Some genotypes can handle the salt if they get regular exercise. Most of us can’t, that’s one reason that so many millions are hypertensive.
This is my first visit to this website and must say -- disappointed to see such radical postings on a recipe website. Save it for the editorial pages, please -- I believe, from what I read, most people would prefer to browse recipes, decide which ones work for our own diets, say kudos to the chef, and move on in the spirit of cooking. With exception of all the unnecessary tirades -- love this website!
This receipe sounds good, and most of the fat and skin can be removed from the chicken. Also you can use olive oil instead of the butter for a healter dish. But 1 tblsp of butter, for this whole receipe, won´t hurt, as long as you´re not using lots of butter everyday. The Campbells soup can be substituted for organic, low sodium soup, for those who can´t have salt. So don´t put down the receipe, just re-shape it, so to speak, for your diet!!!!!!!
Rock the animal fat. It is one of the most important things you can consume. Cook only with coconut oil, butter, olive oil, and peanut oil and in that order. They cover most of your temperature ranges for cooking. Refined vegetable oils are what kill you. Stay away; far away.
Carbohydrates are mostly worthless until allowed to ferment/sprout. Most bacteria and enzymes are your friends and avoid eating anything completely dead (pasteurized).
Salt is not your enemy if you do not eat canned/processed foods. Since none of your food contains it unless it is natural, add some, especially enzyme rich natural salts.
Use butter over olive oil and keep the skins on. Chicken is a low-fat animal and you need the fat. Goose is far superior in healthy saturated fat content.
wow all that talk over something i eat once a week at school i am a 16 year old teenager and love me some mc donalds and kfc i am at a healthy weight and have no health problens so if you would please stop putting your rants off on "helping The children" and focus on defroestation witch is going to kill us much sooner than eating habits most kids are fat today not because of the type of food they eat but by eating too much food and being lazy gets B)
Skinny kid
i just had to put my two cents in... i was looking for something different to do with chicken leg and thigh quarters and actually have the ingredients here. whilst baking, i looked at the comments. lo and behold! the first one was from a web troll. i think what folks don't get about ppl. like anonymous is that they say what they say, not because they necessarily believe it, but simply to be a naysayer. if you tell them the sky is blue you are an idiot because it's green. anon. doesn't give a rip about OUR health, and i am certain he eats at crapdonalds once in a while, just because it tastes good, as does this dish, and sodium content be damned!
This is an excellent dish. Maybe you should be a CHEF. Its nice and simple with an excellent choice in Brown Rice. I like to eat healthy foods, generally non processed and organic. But once in a while, something with Campbells Soup is wonderful. Thank you, im cooking this for dinner this evening.
Tried it the other night as an alternative to "Cream Chicken" (from my husband's childhood, and if you think this is too salty you do not want to know what that is), but even with adding cayenne, cumin, and green onions the rice sucked the flavor out of everything and all we could really taste was onion. Even salted it at the table, and then it tasted of onion and salt. <shrug> But not everyone can like every recipe.[/i]
Delicious! My whole family loved it! Thanks for this great recipe!!!
I was looking for something similar to Grandma's recipe - this looks right! Thanks so much for taking the time to post this recipe!
OK, making this one more time. Using 5 big skinless bone-in chicken breasts, rubbed with jerk paste and left for 24 hours. Had a bit more than a cup of brown rice left in the pantry so put it all in, along with carrots / green pepper / onion. Added a big dollop of yellow mustard on top along with the garlic powder (ok, so I missed the pot and squirted most of it on the oven wall, that still counts right ?). There wasn't quite enough liquid to cover the chicken so poured most of a beer on top of the mustard.
Guessing the chicken will cook before the brown rice, probably should have boiled the rice in the pot before adding chicken but worst case will pull the chicken and cover with foil then let the rice finish in the oven.
Stay tuned.
Actually worked out pretty well. After an hour the rice and chicken were both cooked, although there were a couple of slightly underdone parts in the thickest part of the largest breasts.
There was too much liquid and not enough visible rice, so I picked the meat off the bones and added it back in small pieces. Then there wasn't enough liquid, so I added another beer and some leftover kimchi... and just to get the flames going again, a bit of half-and-half cream ;)
End result had a pretty good chicken a la king kind of taste/texture. Will try it over toast in the morning.
I love this recipe. Thank you. I have been making this exact recipe for about....4 years? Never once thought to write and say thank you. It is one of my faves and always a hit with friends and family. :-)
Politics and Chicken recipes, in one sitting....Mmmm mmmm Good!
OK, just finished making this one again. Veggies this time were a big diced-up carrot, a couple of onions, ginger, and about half a sorry-looking cauliflower. Oh, and a couple of slices of bacon (my favorite vegetable).
Used a cup of Uncle Ben's brown rice, and added ~3 cups of water to the condensed soup along with good amounts (1-2 TBSP) of curry powder, black pepper, chili powder. Brought everything close to a boil then added 4 skinless bone-in chicken breasts (bone up) and pushed down into the liquid). Granulated garlic on top and into the oven at 350F (not a deliberate change, just didn't read instructions carefully) for an hour.
After about 20 minutes I covered the pot with a pizza pan since I remembered the rice not having enough water last time, then after the hour was up I removed the cover, flipped the breasts bone side down, and put the pot back in the oven for another 5-10 minutes.
Worked out really well. Chicken was "just" cooked enough (ie one spot on the thickest breast could have used a couple more minutes), rice and veggies were cooked just right. Pulled one serving out immediately then pulled the meat off the bones and mixed into the rice to make 3 more good-sized servings.
For all the complaints about the Campbell Sodium Bomb of Death a quarter-can of soup per serving didn't contain quite enough salt to cover the rice and veggies, so ended up having to add just a bit of salt at the end. Adding a packet of Lipton Onion Soup would probably have gone too far, at least for me -- now *there* we're talking about a Sodium Bomb of Death ;)
Actually the 1/4-of-recipe servings turned out to be too large, given the use of brown rice and 4 large-ish chicken breasts, so we're probably talking more like 6 servings per recipe. That makes the Contribution of Death from the soup something like :
~3.5g of fat, or 30 calories
- a bit under 300mg of sodium, or ~12% recommended daily value
given that chickens keep getting larger and larger,,, four pieces of breast would make quite a pile of chow.
I personally don't have issues with using a prepared cream based soup - but it is a point of contention with some cooks. I recall some time back a cook that "introduced" their own version / substitute - and I remember chuckling because if one did the math.... it had more salt. go figger.
Campbell, for one, has introduced reduced / low salt versions of many varieties. I typically reach for those - only because I can always add if the taste is 'off'
I've been making this with more rice recently but staying with one can of soup -- I find it lets me have more rice per unit of chicken without the rice being too rich.
The batch in the oven now used 2 cups of brown rice, a big pile of onions/carrots/red pepper/celery, some Dave's Insanity hot sauce, generic Garlic Pepper seasoning, too much Chinese Five Spice powder (the lid fell off), white pepper, smoked paprika, and some Dizzy Pig Swamp Venom rub. Basically whatever happened to be at the front of the seasoning shelf when I decided to make this. Used about 3-1/2 soup cans of water, which is probably about 4 cups.
Topped off with just over two pounds of boneless skinless chicken thighs placed on top but pushed down into the liquid while it was heating up. Then I couldn't resist stirring it all up before putting it in the oven and covering with an inverted pizza pan.
Figure I'll give it 45 minutes before checking on it (it's a big pot) and then maybe pull the chicken up to the top and cook for a while longer uncovered.
OK, now we're getting somewhere. I changed my mind after posting, added another cup of water (so probably closer to 5 cups) and left it in the oven covered for an hour and fifteen minutes then uncovered for maybe 5 minutes (getting hungry). Probably could have done with a bit less water (say 4.5 cups) but rice was nicely cooked and chicken wasn't overdone (it's hard to overcook thighs). The five-spice powder had a fair amount of cinnamon in it, and it really worked well with the brown rice somehow.
I didn't measure the seasonings (ever since I tried a recipe for 5-dump chili my measurements have been pretty approximate) but I figure maybe a teaspoon of Insanity sauce and tablespoon each of everything else.
This is the first time that I've ended up with a decent balance of chicken and veggies/rice, although I still found it a bit chicken-heavy. The richness of the rice is toned down nicely though, to what I would call ideal for me, so "a bit less chicken" might be the right answer rather than "a bit more rice" (since the soup amount has to be an integer number of cans).
I understand that the spirit of the recipe is to have a smaller amount of richer rice then add vegetables on the side, but I really like the whole "veggies in the rice" thing (especially lots of onions) so for me 2 cups of rice rather than 1 seems ideal. I figure 2-and-a-bit pounds of boneless skinless thighs is roughly equivalent to 3-4 pounds of bone-in skin-on chicken parts, so the only real change to the recipe is bumping up rice/water/veggies.
Anyways thanks for a great recipe.
if you have a scale to weight the rice and the water, you can keep some notes and repeat with some consistency.
I'm making much smaller batches (just for two, no left overs) so the margin of error is smaller than multiple cups of this and that - my notes have a small/medium/large batch - in grams rice+grams water.
rice can be tricky - different types/brands vary in the amount of water they'll soak up....
'chicken parts' is another problematic buy for small quantities - I typically have a bag of tenderloin / breast / boneless thighs in the freezer - for long slow wet cooking, I use from the frozen first, add from the fresh package, freeze the balance of the fresh.
i have to say is that this is the most user unfriendly website that i have ever seen. all i wanted to do was ask a question but it's taken me close to an hour to get here! and i still haven't found the proper place to ask this question. I registered (does this website have government security or what?) followed all the directions. too much security for a cooking forum! guess i'll look elsewhere. KMA!
I love this chicken and rice. I do add 1 leek, instead of water with the cream of mushroom soup--I use chicken broth. Either store bought or homemade is good. The zucchini I like to shred and mix it into the rice and all. Everyone who tried this wanted the recipe. Thank you for posting it.
Best ever.
In today's example, I will be using onion, garlic, zucchini, and garlic powder as my add-ins. Start with one medium onion, one clove garlic, one cup rice, one can condensed cream of mushroom, four pounds of chicken parts, 2-1/2 cups water, and one medium zucchini. I used chicken thighs in this example but I generally prefer to use drumsticks for this recipe. I usually lay out the chicken pieces in the pan that I plan to bake the chicken in. That way I know how many pieces to use in the recipe. If there's time, the chicken can be improved by brining in a 4 cup water 1/2 cup table salt solution for about an hour. The onion is diced, garlic is minced, and the zucchini cut lengthwise twice and then chopped into 1/4 in. slices.
Melt one tablespoon butter in a large oven-safe pan. If you're planning on using a different pan to bake the chicken, then you can use a saucepan for this.
When the butter foams and begins to subside, add one cup rice to the melted butter.
Cook, while stirring, until some of the rice becomes opaque. The rice will become lightly browned while we cook the onions in the next step.
Add the diced onions and cook until tender (about 2 minutes). Meanwhile, whisk the can of cream of mushroom with 2-1/2 cup water until smooth.
Stir in the minced garlic followed immediately with the zucchini.
Pour the cream of mushroom mixture into the pan and stir to combine. (If using a separate pan for baking, pour the cream of mushroom mixture into the pan and then add the cooked rice and onions to the mixture. Stir until combined.)
Add the chicken pieces to the mixture. Sprinkle the surface of the mixture with 1 teaspoon garlic powder.
Bake at 375°F for 1 hour or until thighs read 170°F. If using drumsticks, begin checking for doneness after 45 minutes. In general, it's pretty hard to overcook dark meat prepared in this manner, so don't worry too much.
After removing the chicken from the oven, let it stand for about five minutes before scooping out the rice and chicken pieces. (Otherwise, the rice will probably flow everywhere, and it will be difficult to plate effectively.)