Palau: Middle Eastern Chicken and Rice

Preheat oven to 500F and put a large pot of water on to boil. Remove skin from chicken pieces by using a paper towel to grip the slippery skin, so you can pull it off more easily (gross….slippery skin sounds gross). Finely chop the onions, set aside. Put a Dutch oven over medium high heat, and add vegetable oil. Once oil is hot, add the chopped onions.

When the onions have a slight brown color to them, add chicken pieces in one even layer. Lower the heat to medium and stir the chicken and onions once every few minutes. It will be a little awkward to stir the whole pieces of chicken, but just do the best you can. Brown the sides of the chicken as evenly as possible. The onions will begin to caramelize more through this process, be careful to not let them burn.

Once onions begin to turn into a thick sauce and are a nice caramelized color (about 10 minutes after adding chicken to pot), add 1/4 of the chicken broth to the mix. Stir, and allow sauce to thicken again. Continue to add the chicken broth 1/4 cup at a time, allowing sauce to thicken after each addition.

After the full cup of broth is incorporated and the sauce has thickened, place lid over the top of the pot and turn heat to low. Allow to simmer for 10 minutes.

While that is simmering, measure rice out and place in a fine colander. Rinse with cold water and then pour rice into the pot of boiling water, boil rice for 4 minutes, then remove from heat and pour in a colander to strain. Rice should not be fully cooked. Set rice aside.

Once sauce and chicken are done simmering, remove chicken to a plate and set aside. Turn heat up again to medium-high. Bring the sauce to a lively simmer and add cumin, cardamom, pepper and Kitchen Bouquet. Stir sauce and allow to thicken for a minute or two. Remove from heat and add rice to sauce, stir to evenly coat rice. Nestle chicken pieces atop rice, cover and place in oven.

Cook at 500F for 20 minutes, then lower heat to 250F and cook for an additional 15 minutes.

To serve, spoon rice onto a plate or bowl and shred some chicken and place it on top of the rice. Serve along with a dollop of yogurt.