Home-cooked chicken and rice with mushrooms

We were looking through some of our older recipes and we realized something. We don’t have like a real home-cooked recipe. Sure we do have some soups, some curries and all that, but to us those don’t remind us of home. Now, this recipe does. It’s a home-cooked chicken with rice and mushrooms and it’s one of our favorite meals, ever.

In the spirit of this month’s gluten-free and dairy-free challenge, this chicken recipe is actually gluten-free and dairy-free, even if it’s not the healthiest thing in the world (because – white rice!).

Home-cooked Chicken And Rice With Mushrooms

We remember, maybe it was last year, us and our sister went to visit our dad, so he can see our nephew, play with him and just be a grandpa.

Well, we came stuffed from some restaurant where they serve sushi, burgers and pizza all at once. So when our dad said: Do you want to eat something? We made chicken with bulgur…”

Everyone said, no thanks, we’re stuffed. He insisted we try what he had made.

We said no again. Then he insisted some more. And we said no again and that went on for a while.

You can probably understand these discussions if you also come from a family where everyone likes food and is stubborn.

Finally, we couldn’t take it anymore and took one for the team. Fineeee, we'll do it.

We tried what he had made. And we tried it again. And again and again. It was so good. It was like the dish we didn’t know we needed in our life. No burrito, no burger, no 20 ingredients and spices – it was simple and it was so complete.

That chicken with bulgur haunts us till this day. Our dad didn’t make it again in our presence and he doesn’t write down recipes. We tried to copy it, but honestly, we couldn’t.

This recipe comes pretty close, it’s good, but it’s still not the same. Maybe our dad added a spit or a hair or magic or something else. If the second-best chicken with rice is good enough for you then you should try this recipe.

Making Home-cooked Chicken And Rice From Scratch

The secret to making the second-best chicken and rice is…well, there are a lot of secrets:

• saute the mushrooms first! It will make them more fragrant and the dish more satisfying.
• make sure to saute the onion until translucent! You don’t want the onion to stay firm when you’re eating this! The goal is to cook everything, so that it kinda melts in your mouth and you don’t have to use your teeth to chew (Yes, that’s the same person who wrote this post)
• use or don’t use an eggplant. The eggplant isn’t the star and it doesn’t have a key secret role in here. We just added it, because we had it in our fridge.
• Add black pepper kernels! We don’t know how, but these just make the dish a lot better!
• reduce the heat after bringing it all to a boil. You want to let this simmer and stir from time to time.
• Use water and salt or stock. We used water and had to add salt, but if you’re more prepared than us and like using stock for a deeper flavor – do that!
• Use a little bit more olive oil than usual!

We think these were the secrets. Probably not secret to experienced cooks, but to us it was secret.

Hopefully, you like the recipe if you try it! Over here it’s been dark and raining for three days and we think, *we think* we'll go get some chicken, rice, and mushrooms from somewhere and make this again. Note to self: do not edit recipe pictures when hungry!