Food traveler

Chicken with Rice and Butter Onions 

 September 28, 2023 Go to recipe, comments 

 Over the past few years, especially during the long months of 2020, we've been indulging in variations of "chicken rice." It's a dish of chicken and rice simmered together in a flavorful broth, and when eaten together, it feels most cozy and comforting. Rice is incredibly flavorful and absorbs any seasonings and/or vegetables you add to the pan. The chicken is tender and juicy. Even if you cook it a few hours before dinner, the dish holds up well and the leftovers are amazing. It's relatively inexpensive and almost always has rice and various pantry items on hand. It should run for president.I’ve made versions with almost every regional or seasonal flavor group I was craving that day, but the one that has proven to have the most staying power is perhaps unsurprisingly the simplest, the one I can make from the one thing I’ll have around even when the fridge is sparse: onions. We brown chicken thighs in a hot pan, then add a lump of butter and a heap of diced onions to the drippings and cook them down until the onions are golden and sweet throughout, darker and deeply caramelized at the edges. We reserve some of these copper, almost jammy onions then build the rest of the dish on this foundation, adding thyme, a splash of wine, chicken broth, plus the rice and chicken thighs and they all finish cooking together.At the end, we scatter the top with the reserved onions and I … want to take a nap in the pan. No seriously: It’s like a thick comforter on a shivery rainy day, it tastes the way the first hot cup of coffee of the season feels in your hands, and it smells the way you dream your home will when you open the door after an exhausting day, or so seems to be the reaction from my two most opinionated dinner guests.