Baked Chicken and Cardamom Rice
Forget dry chicken and boring rice, this recipe for Baked Chicken Thighs with Cardamom Rice delivers tender, juicy chicken thighs and perfectly cooked flavourful rice. And best of all it all cooks in one baking dish!
This is one of my favorite ways to cook rice. Not only does the rice turn out perfect every time, but baking the rice and chicken together allows the rice time to absorb the flavour from the juices of the chicken, the mellow roasted garlic and shallots and the warm spices of the cardamom and cinnamon while it cooks.
There are two steps to the baking of this Baked Chicken Thighs with Cardamom Rice .
Step 1 – Bake the chicken until golden brown
The chicken thighs, shallots and garlic are tossed in olive oil and seasoned with ground cardamon and salt and pepper. A few cinnamon sticks, a couple sprigs of thyme and the apricots are added, then everything goes into the oven to bake until the chicken is golden brown on top, and the shallots and garlic are nice and soft.
Once the chicken is nicely golden brown it’s time to add the rice.
Step 2 – Bake the rice
The chicken is removed (it will go back in once the rice is prepped).
The rice is added to the baking dish and seasoned with more cardamom, allspice and salt and pepper along with some lemon zest and juice for a hit of acidity. Everything gets a gentle mix, then boiling water is poured in over the rice, the chicken is added back in on top of the rice. All that’s left is to cover tightly with foil and place back into the oven.
20-25 minutes later you have delicious moist chicken and rice with all the flavours baked right in.
Enjoy!
Ingredients
- 4-6 chicken thighs, bone in/skin on
- 60 grams dried apricots thickly sliced
- 12 garlic cloves peeled
- 4 large shallots peeled and cut into quarters
- 3-4 sprigs of fresh thyme
- 3 cinnamon sticks
- ¼ tsp ground allspice
- 10-12 cardamom pods or 1½ tsp ground cardamom
- 60 ml olive oil
- 300 grams basmati rice
- ½ a lemon juice and zest
- salt and pepper
- 600 ml boiling water
- 1 small bunch fresh coriander
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 175°C
- Toast the cardamom pods in a dry skillet. Let them cool for a minute, then remove the seeds from the pods. Grind the seeds in a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder .
- Place the chicken thighs, shallots, garlic, cinnamon sticks, apricots and the thyme in a large casserole dish. Add the olive oil, and season with salt and pepper and 1/2 of the cardamom and mix well.
- Place in the oven with the chicken thighs skin side up, bake until the chicken is golden brown and the shallots are soft, about 30 minutes.
- Increase the oven temperature to 230°C.
- Remove from the oven. Transfer the chicken thighs to a plate and set aside.Rinse the rice 2-3 times in cold water to remove any excess starch. Add the rice, to the baking dish along with the juice and zest of a lemon. Season with salt and pepper, the allspice and remaining cardamom.Roughly chop the tender stems of the fresh coriander and add to the rice, reserving the leaves for garnish.Gently mix, until the rice is evenly coated with the spices and olive oil from the baking dish.Bring the water to a boil and pour over the rice.
- Return the chicken thighs to the baking dish, laying them skin side up on top of the rice.Seal the baking dish tightly with aluminum foil and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until the rice is cooked. Remove from the oven and let rest, covered for 5-10 minutes.
- Serve garnished with fresh coriander leaves.