spiced chicken with chilli pilaf

wooeee! talk about spicyness... of both the spice and hot kinds. i made this for dinner tonite and it turned out pretty good overall. the recipe comes from donna hay's new food fast cookbook, which is chock full of 10, 20 and 30 minute recipes simply prepared and fantastic food porn!

i've just got to take a second to talk about the photography in this book. hay plates all her dishes on white dinner and serving ware against a white backdrop, providing a blank canvas, so to speak, for the vibrant, saturated and glistening colors to shine through. there are some amazing macro shots; in one instance you can see the varying folds and air pockets in a cross-section of a slice of basil frittata. the book catches a lot of inspired home cooks due to its simple, almost deceptively basic, few ingredient recipes and fabulous food porn that leaves you scratching your head after cooking: "why didn't my dish come out looking like that??"


hay's recipes are hit and miss, and curiously omit salt in many recipes. if you're looking for refined, melded flavors, look elsewhere. this cookbook is for us brash, bold, spicy and sometimes affronting cooks who aren't afraid of overdosing on a great spice. but it is a good base of variety and you can adjust seasoning to your tastes.

start the chilli pilaf by first heating oil in a saucepan and adding 2 seeded and chopped red chilies, letting them soften for a minute. add 1 1/2 cups dry rice and stir to coat for another minute. add 3 cups chicken stock (season with a small pinch of salt, depending if your stock is low sodium or not) and stir to combine. bring up to a boil and then simmer until almost all the liquid has evaporated.

the recipe then calls for trimmed and cut chinese long beans to be placed on top of the rice and covered with a lid off the heat for another 10 min. i found the beans to be undercooked and recommend steaming/stirfrying them separately. a little salt and lemon juice wouldn't hurt either.

while the rice is cooking, slice 2 large chicken breasts into 4 strips each. in a bowl, combine 2T cumin, 2t cinnamon, some cracked black pepper (a good pinch of salt) and coat the chicken strips. in a frying pan, heat some oil and cook the strips until golden brown on each side. don't overcook, you want the meat to have soft springiness.


plate up by placing the long beans down, then a couple scoops of rice, and the chicken on top. the meat turned out surprisingly moist and tender and the spice mixture is definitely spicy and hot, even a little brash, so watch out. the pilaf is quite tasty and the chiles add just the right amount of flavor and kick. the long beans according to hay's recipe are bland, too green tasting and too crunchy. the texture difference is nice however. overall the dish combined works. you'll just need a beverage or two.