Good evening everyone! So for tonight's dinner I took a little trip to Spain! On the menu tonight was Rachael Ray's "Piquillo Pepper Chicken with Spanish Rice". Olé!!
First up you start the rice. To begin with you place a good handful of sliced almonds into a skillet to toast them. Rachael Tip: Watch the almonds closely. This goes really quickly and they can burn. As Rachael says "Your nose will know when they are done"! When the nuts become fragrant and slightly browned, take them off the heat and reserve them. Also, to get the greatest shelf life out of your nuts keep them in the freezer. Nuts have oil and oil can spoil so keeping them in the freezer gets you the longest use out of them! In the meantime, put the chicken stock, saffron, turmeric, golden raisins, salt and pepper in a pot and bring it to a boil. Drop the rice, reduce the heat to simmer and let it cook for about 18 minutes. Once the rice is done, add in the sliced almonds and flat leaf parsley and it's good to go!
While the rice is cooking, prepare the chicken. The chicken is really simple. Season it with salt and pepper, and when the EVOO ripples and wafts a little bit of smoke, add the chicken breasts in. If the breasts are 6oz, they should cook about 6 minutes on each side. Luckily the breasts i bought were really close to this. Two of them were a little big so I pounded them out with a meat mallet to get them to a uniform thickness with the smaller chicken breasts. Worked perfectly! Obviously, if the breasts are smaller they will take less time and if they are larger allow a little more time to cook. Once the chicken is done, you can remove it to a plate and cover with foil to keep it warm. Into the skillet you cooked the chicken in, add the piquillo peppers and let them heat through a minute or two. Piquillo peppers are a small spanish pepper that is usually in the same section of the grocery store as the roasted red peppers. The small grocery store next to my apartment didn't have them so I had to use roasted red peppers instead. If your market has the piquillos go with those but if not feel free to substitute roasted red peppers. Next, add the dry sherry and deglaze. I would recommend cooking the chicken in a stainless steel pan or cast iron pan if you have it. Using a non stick skillet won't allow the drippings to stick well to the bottom of the pan. When you use cast iron or stainless steel, deglazing with the wine pulls up all the bits on the bottom of the pan and adds tons of flavor to the sauce. If you have only non stick, that's fine. Still gonna taste great. But when i need to deglaze, i prefer a cast iron or stainless steel pan. Anyway, deglaze with the sherry and let it reduce a minute or two. I didn't have sherry and this small grocery store didn't have a wine section. Since I didn't feel like stopping by the wine shop and getting sherry, I simply used white wine. Sherry is a more spanish ingredient to use and if you have it use it and if you're gonna have to buy wine anyway, go ahead and pick it up. Rachael Tip: DO NOT use the cooking sherry that you might find over on the vinegar aisle. Cooking wines tend to be overly sweet and when you cook with wine it concentrates the flavor. As a general rule, if you wouldn't drink it, you shouldn't cook with it. Once the sherry reduces a little bit turn off the heat, add in the butter and parsley and stir around to melt the butter and it's done!
To serve this up simply plate the rice, then lay a chicken breasts on top and top with the pepper and sauce mixture. This one was a really tasty meal. It took me back to when I was a kid and my mom used to buy the yellow rice packages in the grocery store that she used to serve up with her baked chicken and green beans! That's the great part about cooking! It can instantly take you back! As Rachael says, cooking is good for the soul and after the day i've had, it was much needed! The almonds in the rice add a nice bit of crunch and earthiness and the golden raisins give a nice sweet bite here and there! The sauce over the chicken has great flavor and is a real winner! Hope you guys enjoy your own little trip to Spain! Until next time, Happy cooking!!
Recipe: This recipe is featured in Rachael Ray's "Look + Cook" cookbook! However, it was also featured on her talk show so the link is below!! Enjoy!!
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