Chef Paul Prudhomme Country Captain

May 21st, 2013 - Tuesday - It has been really busy lately and I've taken to doing something I haven't done in years. Buying frozen meals.  I started with PF Changes Frozen Meal!

Then the next night we did:

So what were the results?

Not great... not at all... so I decided I needed to cook again, on my own! And I decided to do a meal called Country Captain.  In December of 2012 I found three Country Captain Recipes in different books and cooked all three one night in a taste test with my family.  I don't have the details of that cook-off here on the blog, but if I ever do it again I'll do a full post for them. The Paul Prudhomme Country Captain from his book Seasoned America won!

This meal is very similar to some of his Jambalaya that he cooks.  It's a chicken dish heavily seasoned, cooked in rice.   He does a lot of these meals, and they are an absolute favorite of my son Riley.  After the foray into Frozen Meal goodness... it was a nice return to cook something up on our own.  Here is the modified recipe that I used.  I really like this meal, but I wouldn't rate it as top notch. I should create a rating scale to try and make sense of things, but there is a part of me that thinks that's a dumb idea. I'll just let you cook it and tell me where YOU rate it!  

Seasoning Mix

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon of curry powder.  I used Bolst's Mild Curry Powder (1 tablespoon) and Rajah Tandoori Masala (1 teaspoon) -  

When it comes to curry powder, well... there are so many brands out there.  For years I used to use Spice Islands Curry Powder only!

Now I have like 20 different brands... One day we are going to have to get serious and figure out which one is the best. It's going to take some serious work and testing... 

On with the recipe...

2 teaspoons of salt

2 teaspoons of sugar or brown sugar

1 teaspoon of dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon of dried cilantro leaves

1/2 teaspoon of dry mustard

1/2 teaspoon of dried sweet basil leaves

1/2 teaspoon of white pepper

1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon of ground cardamom

1/4 teaspoon of ground allspice

As with most of my spices, I usually use Spice Islands.

I've considered some variations to this mix.  First of all we could try different Curry Powder brands and see what we get.  Additionally we could add some more pepper to heat it up, white, black, and red mixes always being something I recommend.

Ingredients

2 lbs of chicken tenders - You can use whatever you want here to be honest, chicken breasts, thighs, bone in, bone out . I just had boneless chicken tenders from Costco.

1/2 cup or so of flour

Oil food Cooking - I used about 4 tablespoons of Olive Oil

4 small onions, chopped

2 red bell peppers, chopped - Obviously you can use whatever color peppers you want, but I've noticed that the red ones are a bit sweeter to the taste.  They cost more than green ones, but I think they DO taste different.

1 cup of uncooked rice

1 1/2 teaspoon of minced garlic (I get mine from a jar, but you can use fresh)

4 small tomatoes chopped

1 cup of almonds (I didn't slice them, but I think I would next time.  Chop them up good!)

1/2 cup of raisins 

4 cups of chicken stock

This ingredient list can fluctuate. If you don't like almonds and raisins, take them out.  I think the main ingredients are the chicken, rice, onions, pepper, and tomato.  You can add or subtract a few things to that as you like.

Instructions

Add all the spices into a bowl and mix well.  Use a bunch of it to coat the chicken pieces, patting it in with your hands.  Heat the oil in a big pot.  Dredge the chicken, and cook 5-7 minutes, turning often.  Take chicken out.  

You might need to add some more oil here... Throw in some onions and some more spice mixture.  Cook 5 minutes or so.  Add the rice, more spice mixture, and stir and cook 3-4 minutes.  Then add the garlic and tomatoes, and the rest of the onions and peppers and the rest of the spice mixture.  Cook a 5 more minutes, then add the almonds, raisins, and stock and throw the chicken back in there.  You might need more or less stock.

Bring to a boil and then lower to a simmer for 20 minutes, covered.  Then turn off the heat and let stand 15 minutes covered.  Then it's ready!

Let me know how you like it!  The idea of mixing meats, vegetables and rice together into meals is just fantastic, and there are endless variations.  This is a good one.