GEORGIAN STUFFED ROASTED CHICKEN

I was drooling when I read the blog and told myself that I must cook this when I saw the recipe from The Kitchen Flavours - their monthly Cook Like a Star event. 

Its called Nigella Lawson's Georgian Stuffed Chicken.

Make some adaptions to the recipe but the result was great, truly a keeper. 

Heat butter and olive oil in pan.  Add half diced onion and saute till fragrant and transparent.  Add minced garlic and about 1 cup of  basmati rice (rinsed and drained). Fry till rice is well coated and add chopped dried apricots and dried cranberries.  Add chicken stock or water to cover the rice.  

Bring to a boil and cover the pan and on low heat let the rice cook - around 10 minutes.  Lastly throw in some chopped coriander or any other herbs. I like the way the rice looked- with the speckles of apricots and cranberries.

While rice is cooking, prepare the chicken. Mix softened butter(room temperature) with chopped herbs. Slowly and carefully spread the butter mix under the skin of the chicken.  Season chicken with salt and black pepper. Rub excess butter mix over the chicken as well.    

Stuff the cooked rice into cavity of the chicken and secure with toothpicks. If you cannot filled all the rice inside the chicken, its alright, you can serve them on the side.  

Place some onion,  lemons slices and cherry tomatoes in the baking tray.  Place chicken on the baking tray. Bake in pre-heated oven 160C for around 30-40 minutes. I only turn the chicken over once during the baking time, basting it with the juices from the tray.

Remove chicken from oven and rest it for a while before serving.
The rice is yummylicious both from the juices from the chicken as well as those  apricots and cranberries in the rice. As I bite into the rice, I can taste their sweet yet tangy favlour.
The skin of roasted chicken is crispy while the meat is moist and juicy.

My neighbour gave me a bag of these beansprouts from Ipoh again.  I simply stir-fry them with minced garlic.

This is  my version of  Ipoh's famous "Nga Choy Khai" (aka Chicken with beansprouts) D:

The leftover chicken was transformed into a soothing  pot of porridge 3 days later. Esther was not feeling, so I decided to boil some congee for her.  I  shredded the meat and set it aside and I just scraped everything, yes everything- even the lemons (which I forgot to take out) to boil.   Could you believe it, the porridge tasted so good - comfort food  at its best!