Chicken & Chorizo Baked Rice
A wide dish of red-gold rice studded with chorizo coins, chunks of chicken, and bright green peas, brought to the table with the foil peeled back in front of her, has all the energy of paella with none of the pan-shaking. The oven cooks the rice. You pour broth over some things and cover them. That is the whole technique, and it is why this dish has never gone wrong in the history of home kitchens.
- Cost for two
- $27
- Active time
- 20 min
- Done ahead
- 72%
- 1 hr 55 min before 7:30
- Hands off at
- 7:25
- T-5
Allergens: None of the top 9 · Check labels: cured chorizo sometimes contains milk (lactose) and broth cartons sometimes contain soy or wheat·Serves: 2, with a lunch left over (a half-empty dish looks sad, so this makes 4 portions)·Oven: 425°F
Gear: One 9×13 baking dish (glass or ceramic), foil, a liquid measuring cup or a mug you can microwave, a probe thermometer, a phone timer. No skillet, no pot.
Start at 5:30. Hands off from 7:25. Stove mode follows the clock while you cook.
The 7:30 Timeline
Read it bottom-up if you like; cook it top-down.
Done before she arrives
Aisle order
Shopping list
Produce
Yellow onion
1
Lemon
1
Meat & Seafood
Boneless, skinless chicken thighs
about 5
1¼ lb
Cured Spanish chorizo
7–8 oz; Palacios or the store's "Spanish-style" chorizo, usually hanging near the deli or specialty cheese, sometimes with the packaged salami. Not Mexican chorizo, which is raw and crumbles. If there is none: a 12-oz package of andouille or kielbasa, sliced the same way.
1 ring
Pantry & Canned
Long-grain white rice
1 lb; you use 1 cup. Not instant, not brown, not arborio.
1 bag
Chicken broth
32 oz; you use 2¼ cups
1 carton
Smoked paprika
small jar
Frozen
Frozen peas
you use 1 cup
1 bag
Pantry (you probably have these)
Salt, pepper, olive oil
At the stove
Method
- 1
Pat the thighs dry with paper towels. Cut each one into 3 chunks. Any shape is fine.
- 2
Toss the chunks with 1 teaspoon smoked paprika, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 tablespoon olive oil until orange all over.
- 3
If the chorizo has a papery outer skin, peel it off with your fingers. Cut the chorizo into coins as thick as a pencil.
- 4
Peel the onion and cut it into rough ½-inch pieces.
- 5
Put 1 tablespoon oil in the 9×13 dish. Add the onion, chorizo, 1 cup dry rice, 1 teaspoon smoked paprika, and ½ teaspoon salt. Stir with your hand until the rice grains are orange, then spread it flat.
- 6
Push the chicken chunks into the rice, spaced apart, so the tops just show.
- 7
Cover the dish tightly with foil, pressing it down around the rim. Refrigerate.
- 8
Cut the lemon into 4 wedges. Measure 2¼ cups broth into a microwave-safe mug or measuring cup and refrigerate it.
- 9
At 7:00, turn the oven to 425°F with a rack in the middle. Set the dish on the counter, still covered.
- 10
At 7:20, microwave the broth for 3 minutes until it steams. Peel the foil back, pour the hot broth evenly over the whole surface, and press the foil back on tightly. Hot broth is what makes the timer reliable.
- 11
At 7:25, slide the dish onto the middle rack. Set a 40-minute timer.
- 12
At the timer, pull the dish. Lift a corner of the foil: the liquid should be gone and a grain of rice from the edge should be soft between your teeth.
- 13
Scatter 1 cup frozen peas straight from the bag across the top. Put the foil back on and leave it on the stovetop 5 minutes; the peas heat through and turn bright green.
- 14
Probe a chicken chunk: 165°F. Squeeze a lemon wedge over everything.
- 15
Carry the dish to the table and take the foil off in front of her.
Is it done?
The check that needs no experience
Thermometer: 165°F in the center of the largest chicken chunk. No thermometer: cut the biggest chunk in half; white all through, no pink, no wet-looking center. The rice has no visible liquid, a grain from the middle of the dish is soft with no hard core, and the chorizo coins have gone dark red with a slick of orange oil around them.
The #1 way to screw it up
At 8:05 the rice is still wet and crunchy in the middle, because the foil was loose and the steam escaped, the broth went in cold, or the oven runs cool.
Recovery
Microwave ½ cup water in the mug for 90 seconds, pour it over the rice, put the foil back on as tight as you can, and give it 10 more minutes at 425°F. Then the peas, then the 5-minute rest. She has a spritz and a starter; 8:20 is an honest dinner time. Do not stir it, and do not put it on the stove; that is how baked rice becomes glue.
- A chicken chunk reads under 165°F
- it goes back in with the rice for the same 10 minutes. The recovery is the same and everything else keeps.
- The edges are scorched dark
- scrape them into the middle when you serve. That crust is the best bite, and if anybody tells you otherwise they have not been to Valencia.
The reveal
Plating
Serve from the dish at the table, or spoon a tall mound of rice into the middle of a wide shallow bowl for each of you, digging deep so every serving gets chicken and chorizo. Lift a few chorizo coins and chicken chunks to the top with the spoon so they show, and let the peas stay scattered where they fell. Set a lemon wedge on the rim, drizzle a thread of olive oil over the rice, and pinch a little smoked paprika onto the rim of the bowl.
Vegetarian swap
Swap the chicken for one 15-oz can of chickpeas (drained) and the chorizo for a red bell pepper cut into strips, and double the smoked paprika, which is what was carrying the chorizo's smoke anyway. Use vegetable broth. Same dish, same hot broth, same 40 minutes covered, same peas and lemon. It is a vegetable paella; less meaty on the plate, so be generous with the peas and put the lemon wedge front and center.
What to pour
- Wine
- a Spanish Tempranillo — Campo Viejo Rioja, about $11; or Bogle Old Vine Zinfandel, about $10, if you want something juicier against the paprika.
- Beer
- Estrella Damm or Modelo Especial, cold.
- No alcohol
- lemon soda over ice with an orange slice, the zero-proof cousin of what you would drink on a terrace in Seville.
Take this to the supermarket.
The First Bulletproof Dinner as a PDF, with the timelines. Free.