Chicken in wine

Sorry, no photo for this recipe, which is most unblog like. A true crime against blog etiquette! Quite unpardonable, I know.

This is my go to recipe for chicken. I like the result so much I hardly ever cook chicken any other way. It is both light and tasty. It is also very easy to prepare. It is not exactly quick, but only because I thoroughly skin the chicken before cooking it. This is not absolutely necessary, but if you do not at least remove most of the chicken's fat, the dish will be a lot less light. As I cook it, the sauce has almost no fat and I like its flavour much better. However, if you do like the flavour of chicken's fat, you may avoid the nasty work of skinning and cleaning the chicken.

Ingredients

One chicken
4 garlic cloves, pressed or chopped finely
1 teaspoon of herb mix
1 laurel leaf
1 cup of red wine
1 cup of water
a pinch of salt
a pinch of chilli powder

Recipe

1. Skin and remove the fat of the chicken.
2. In a pressure cooker, add the water and wine, and all other ingredients except the chicken. Place the chicken on it, first the back, then roll it in order to cover all sides in the sauce. Leave it with the chest side down.
3. Cook the chicken for 15 min in high pressure. Follow the instructions of your pressure cooker.
4. Done!

Note: this is the exact recipe I follow, but you can change the flavouring to your taste. For example, add black pepper or other favourite spice, use white wine instead of red. You can also add some vegetables to the pot to be cooked in the same sauce as the chicken. I often add green beans. If you do not own a pressure cooker, you can cook it in a normal pot. It will take about 45 min to be ready depending on the size of the chicken. In this case, you can turn the chicken around after half an hour, in order to cook both sizes in sauce.

Rice in chicken sauce

A normal person would probably thicken the sauce in order to serve it, but I am lazy and I really like it as is. More like a broth, than a sauce. What I often do is use the extra sauce (there is always a lot of it) to prepare some delicious rice. I sometimes cook the chicken in advance in order to cook the rice afterwards and serve it with the chicken. But most often I use the left-over sauce and chicken to cook my own recipe of chicken risotto the next day. Either way is delicious.

Ingredients (for 2 people)

1 cup of Arborio rice
left-over broth from the above recipe
left-over chicken from the above recipe (optional)
water, if needed
olive oil (optional)

Recipe

To a small pot, add the broth and the rice. If using chicken left-over, shred it into small bite-sized pieces before adding it to the pot. Add water if the sauce is not enough to cook the rice. Bring to a boil, stir in order to loosen the rice, and then lower the heat to minimum. Let it cook until the rice is soft and ready to eat. Add some olive oil (optional) and mix it thoroughly. Done!

It looks simple and it is, except that you need to have some experience of cooking rice in order to get the amount of liquid right. The good news is that this recipe is very forgiving. It actually tastes better if the rice is a bit watery and not too dry and even slightly over cooked. You should start with enough liquid to cover the rice with an extra 2cm or half inch above the rice level. If you have not added enough liquid to begin with, the rice will become dry and start to glue to the bottom of the pot. In this case, add half a cup of water and stir well.

Note: I find the broth is always salty enough that I do not need to add salt to the rice, but you may need to add salt if cooking more rice or if the broth you use is not salty enough.