Eat for less: roast chicken and rice

I know.

Put like this the meal we had tonight sounds as boring as yesterday’s salad.

But my house smells so great that I’ll stop writing now and go have dinner first; see you in thirty minutes.

Now, this is better. My tummy is full and my family replete.

I am sitting here, with a glass of white wine (well, sometimes I compromise my standards a bit) to share this wonderful, easy to prepare and relatively inexpensive recipe.

You know, in the UK we have this habit of cooking things separately. Twenty five years ago this surprised me; today I do the same.

My sister though – yes she is visiting again – cooks the Bulgarian, or even ‘the European’ way: she cooks things together to achieve a precious mixture of taste and texture .

Tonight, I’m sharing not simply a recipe for roast chicken and rice; I’m sharing ‘the recipe’ for it.

Here is what you need

To cook this dish you need:

• Chicken legs
• Rice (long grain or risotto)
• Salt and pepper to taste.

How many chicken legs you prepare and how much rice you cook depends on how many portions you are preparing. We cooked eight chicken legs – two each.

What is important is to get the right pieces of chicken. This dish is not very nice with chicken breast because it dries up when roasted.

I tried to buy chicken thighs and my sister neatly stopped me: too fatty, she said.

This dish is best prepared either with chicken legs or using a whole chicken.

Here is what you do

Place the chicken legs (or whole chicken) in a deep roasting tray.

Rub a bit of olive oil in the chicken – this make it tender and brings the flavour out. Add very little bit of water (only several drops, really)

Pre-heat the oven to 200-220C and put the chicken in. Roast for about 30 minutes or until almost ready.

When the chicken is almost ready, take the tray out of the oven.

Add the rice to the tray and add water. Please make sure that you put one cup of rice to three cups of boiling water. Be careful not to put any rice on top of the chicken – it’s not going to cook.

Add salt and pepper (or any other dressing) to taste.

Put the tray back in the oven and keep there for another 20 minute or until the rice is ready.

This is it! Smells divine and tastes even better!

This meal costs between £3 and £5 pound depending on where you buy your chicken legs. You can also lower the cost by using fewer chicken legs and putting more rice: my son, for example, is really keen on the rice but no so taken by the chicken.

Finally…

This is one of my favourite meals. It has it all: nutrition, taste and making it you’ll really eat for less.

This is also a very versatile meal. You can prepare it during the weekend for your family.

You can just as well cook it and invite your friends around – now, this can be a really cheap night in with great friends, good conversation and free wine because they’ll bring it.

Can’t beat it, really; eat for less at its very best.