Week 3 - One Pot

The theme for Week 3 of the 52 weeks of cooking challenge is one pot, which has probably been the easiest challenge so far. I've made so many meals over the past year that could count as "one pot," including many of the dishes made in our slow cooker. I didn't want to just do another slow cooker meal for the challenge (making one tomorrow so I guess that counts anyway) and went looking for a recipe that would use different techniques so I could learn something new. What would be better for one pot week than a recipe from Serious Eats titled One-Pot Sesame Chicken, Shiitake and Brown Rice?

Ingredients:

- 3 chicken breasts ($3)

- salt and black pepper ($0.10)

- olive oil ($0.05)

- equivalent of 1 leek (whites and light greens) ($0.30)

- 4 small shallots ($0.25)

- 10 shiitake mushrooms *

- 4 cloves of garlic ($0.10)

- 4 tsp sesame oil ($0.50)

- 1 can sliced water chestnuts ($0.99)

- 1.75 cups brown rice ($1)

- 2 cups of low sodium chicken stock ($0.50)

- 1/2 cup water ($0)

* I have no idea how old these shiitake mushrooms are. I bought this giant container of dried mushrooms back in Chicago, probably at least ten years ago. We just finished them off with this recipe. I'm happy that (a) we finally used them all up, (b) the mushrooms didn't go to waste and were worth driving back from Chicago, and (c) the dried mushrooms were still good this many years later, but I'm sad because now I no longer have a reserve of dried shiitakes and need to figure out if Costco still sells anything like it! I'm going to count these as $0 here because I have no idea how much they cost and because they're really old.

This wasn't an absurdly expensive recipe (total around $7), but if I had to buy fresh shiitake mushrooms, that would have tacked $3 onto the total and would likely have changed my opinion. We had all the ingredients at home which made it a great Monday meal (trying to avoid grocery shopping on Sunday or Monday).

Process:

This recipe was easy to follow. Based on the estimated times in the recipe (e.g., 8-12 minutes for the vegetables to brown), I thought I had more time to get prep done during cooking (something I'm trying to get better at), but it turned out that I didn't have nearly enough time (probably because I used frozen leeks instead of fresh and rehydrated mushrooms instead of regular ones). 

1. Dry chicken and season with salt and pepper. Brown chicken on both sides and transfer to plate.

2. Saute leeks, mushrooms and shallots over medium heat. When softened and browned, add garlic and stir fry for one minute.

3. Stir in sesame oil, water chestnuts and rice. Cook for 1 minute, increase heat to medium high, and stir in broth and water. Bring to simmer.

4. Add chicken back into broth. Cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer until rice is tender, most liquid has evaporated and chicken is cooked, about 40 minutes.

5. Turn off heat, leave lid ajar and let it stand for 5-10 minutes.

Review:

The dish doesn't look that exciting and is fairly monochromatic, but that appearance hides great flavor. We were really pleasantly surprised by how this came out. Cooking the rice in chicken broth, sesame oil and water from the dehydrated mushrooms made it so flavorful. (I did think it was a touch too salty, but A thought it was fine.) Some of the smaller pieces of chicken were a little dry but (a) that's my fault and not the recipe and (b) most of them were ok.

However one place where I feel the dish could use some improvement is the amount of vegetables. The crispy water chestnuts and juicy mushrooms were very present, but the leeks and shallots were barely there. I think in the future, now that I know the technique for a chicken and vegetable one pot meal, I can add all sorts of vegetables to it, bringing in more color and variety. I really liked this, especially how easy it was to make, and we would definitely do this again.