Chicken and Brown Gravy Over Rice Recipe

I called my mom asking for a recipe and then an idea struck me. Instead of calling her every time I need a recipe, why not build Hubs for each of my favorite recipes so they'll live on forever in the virtual world and others can benefit from them as well if they want to?

My dad is 83 years old today (April 20th, the day this Hub is built). So I'll start with one of his recipes that I grew up eating that is good old Southern comfort food.

It's called Chicken and Brown Gravy. Now dad used to get a whole chicken and cut it up, but I take the shortcut and use chicken thighs for this.

The thighs are juicier than breasts, and make sure if you're health conscious, you get boneless skinless thighs.

You'll need to get the following before you cook the meal:

A pressure cooker

One pack of chicken thighs per 2 people (*You can use breasts or whatever pieces you prefer)

Flour

Beef bouillon cubes

Oil

One yellow onion (medium size)

Salt

White rice

Place the chicken thighs in the pressure cooker with enough water to cover it and a tablespoon of egetable oil (I use Canola). Add salt (I usually put a little mound in my hand and toss it in there).

Add the onion. You can cut it up or put it in whole. Since my family doesn't like onions, but they like the flavor it adds, I keep mine whole so I can scoop the whole thing on my plate. Pressure cooked onion - yum!

(Side story - off topic - when I was pregnant with my first son, I had cravings for onions. Raw, yellow large onions. I ate them like apples. Daily. My son, when he was a toddler, loved chewing on the ends of green onions - maybe I passed it along?)

Seal the pressure cooker and place it on stove to get it hot enough to begin spewing. Then turn it down to a medium heat and let it cook for 25 minutes.

Take off the burner and place in sink to run water over it for a minute. Then let cool until safe to open.

While I let my pressure cooker cool off, I cook my rice. Ever open a pressure cooker when it's not cooled off? I did...once. Not a pretty thing to have happen.

To cook the rice, I put 1 cup of white rice in a bowl and rinse it off. Then add 3 cups water to it, a tablespoon of oil, and salt to taste. Let it begin boiling and then turn it down onto a medium heat until it's done (usually around 20 minutes).

Take it off the burner and set aside.

Okay, you have to be fast with this one. Get a deep frying pan and place about 3 tablespoons of oil in it and 3-4 beef bouillon cubes.

Turn the heat on medium (sometimes I get antsy and put it on high and wind up in a frenzy). Let the beef bouillon cubes begin melting, and help them along by smushing them with your spatula.

Move them around until your oil and beef bouillon is a nice brown oily consistency. Then add about 3 spoonfuls (like the kind you eat cereal with) of flour into the pan, stirring it all around until it's mixed well. Be fast with this, because you'll quickly need to move on.

Pour some of the water from the pressure cooker into the frying pan and stir it all around until it's mixed well and begins to thicken. Continue adding a little water from the pressure cooker until you have as much gravy as you need and it's as thick or thin as you want it.

When it's how you want it consistency-wise, pour it into a gravy bowl.

My dad used to say, "it's so good you'll swallow your tongue!" And it is.

Get a plate and spoon some rice onto it. Take out a couple of chicken thighs from the pressure cooker and place them on top of the rice or to the side.

Pour gravy over the rice and mix it up.

Take a bite - making sure you get some chicken, rice, and brown gravy all on your fork.

Smile and enjoy the rest of your Southern Comfort meal courtesy of Jim Lambert - world's greatest dad ever :)