This was one of the first entries in our Best Healthy Casseroles contest, and I knew right away that it was a favorite. Why? Because I wanted to cook it immediately! This simple dish from reader Nancy takes just a few ingredients, and through the magic of the oven, transforms them into an aromatic dish of perfectly cooked rice studded with chicken and shiitake mushrooms, flavored with soy, ginger, and garlic.
Why I chose Nancy's casserole
This dish has so many of my favorite flavors: Soy, garlic, ginger, and rich mushrooms. It also features one of my favorite casserole techniques: Baked rice. Rice can be really wonderful when baked in the oven. When done right, like it is here, it is easy and foolproof, and it lets the rice absorb the other flavors in the pot.
Cooking this is very quick and simple. You marinate chunks of chicken (cut very small so they cook fast with the rice) with soy, sesame oil, and a bit of sugar. Then you take a small amount of dried smoked sausage and cook it slowly to help it release its fat (and flavor), and use this to cook the mushrooms. Add the rice, chicken, and some stock. Bring to a boil and put in the oven. 45 minutes later you have a delicious one-pot meal with rice, chicken, and mushrooms.
I just could not believe how delicious this was, especially for so little work. From pulling the chicken out of the fridge to chop and marinate it, to cooking the mushrooms and baking the casserole itself, I put it on the table in just over an hour. It was absolutely packed with flavor: the ginger pops out and the soy livens it up. My husband and I were both delighted with it, and we ate it for lunch, happily, for three days straight! I cook and develop recipes regularly, so I don't return to recipes very often. But this is one that I am going to make over and over again.
Nancy's Notes
• What makes this recipe so great?
I love this recipe for so many reasons. It's fast, easy and so good for you! One of my favorite things to eat at Chinese restaurants is clay-pot rice. There are so many gorgeous flavors and they come together perfectly to make one cohesive meal. I hope you enjoy this casserole as much as I do.
• What makes this casserole health(ier)?
I love this recipe because it is light but still packed with flavor! I use chicken breast which is incredibly good for you, mushrooms which are an excellent source of potassium and very low in calories, and rice which is a major plus for all the gluten-free people in my life.
serves 6
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
2 teaspoons cornstarch
2 boneless chicken breasts, about 1 pound, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
3 scallions, roughly chopped, plus extra to serve
3 garlic cloves, minced
1-inch piece fresh ginger, roughly grated
2 ounces smoked sausage, such as Chinese lapchang or good Italian salami, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
10 ounces fresh shiitake mushrooms, caps thinly sliced
1 tablespoon canola or peanut oil
2 cups Chinese long grain rice
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups chicken stock
Heat the oven to 350°F. Whisk together the soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, and cornstarch in a medium bowl. Stir in the chicken, scallions, garlic and ginger, and toss so that they are coated with the liquid. Place this mixture in the refrigerator and let marinate for at least 15 minutes while you cook the mushrooms.
Place an oven-safe pan, like a 3-quart Dutch oven, over medium high heat on the stove. When it is hot, add the sausage and turn the heat down to medium-low. Let the sausage slowly release its fat. When the bottom of the pot is slick with the sausage fat, add the mushrooms. Turn the heat back up to medium high heat and let the mushrooms cook, without stirring them, for 5 minutes. Flip them over and cook for another 3 minutes.
Add 1 tablespoon oil to the pot, and sauté the rice briefly to develop some toasty flavor (you don’t want to brown the rice here, just sauté it for 1 minute or so), then add the salt and the chicken mixture from the fridge. Pour in the stock. Bring to a boil.
Turn off the heat, cover with a lid or with foil and bake for 45 minutes. Make sure to taste the rice for doneness before taking it out of the oven. I like my rice a little chewier; some might want it more cooked. Let stand 5 minutes, covered, before serving. Stir up the rice before serving, as the chicken and mushrooms will have risen to the top during baking (see photo below). Stir thoroughly so that they are incorporated throughout the rice.
Garnish with chopped scallions and serve with extra soy sauce and chili garlic sauce, if desired.
Recommended Side Dish
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Winners receive:
• A copy of Faith's new book: Not Your Mother's Casseroles (Harvard Common Press, January 2011)
• A new casserole baker from Emile Henry's Urban line
(Images: Faith Durand)
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This sounds delicious.
Whoa, this looks and sounds fantastic! We don't eat pork though - I'm wondering how to cook the mushrooms and give them a lot of flavour without the sausage. Any ideas?
this looks great - i'll be sure to try it, with some adaptations. i don't eat pork, either. i would omit the sausage and cook the mushrooms in a bit of sesame oil.
Oh yes you can certainly omit the sausage - no problem. Just cook the mushrooms until they are nice an dark. You could add a tablespoon of miso for umami too.
What if I wanted to leave out the mushrooms?
Adaptation for brown rice? Longer cooking time, yes, but more liquid too?
I tried the traditional lapcheong and dry duck leg in a dutch oven. It cooks evenly and perfectly. Rice was done right and the meats were great. I tried using the traditional clay pot but ending up burnt rice in the bottom on the side. I have a gas stove top and it needs a heat diffuser for even heating. Dutch oven is great for it. This recipe sounds delicious.
Jazmine, a splash of cooking wine will do wonders for mushrooms. I like to use Shao Xing, a Chinese cooking wine you can get at any Asian food market :)
@jazminecat - seems like you could use a chicken or turkey based "sausage" instead, couldn't you?
Going to make this tonight! It reminds me of Chinese sticky rice. Looks yummy!
So, I just made this dish and ate two bowlsful. It was good but it was missing something. Next time I'm going to add some veggies like carrots and soy beans. Maybe sauté some onions on the side and throw them in when the rice is done. Overall, easy recipe that was good and adaptable.
I made this and it was tasty -- added some white miso paste for extra flavor. One thing I would recommend is if you use regular rice (I didn't have the Chinese sticky rice), cook it for less. I use white jasmine rice that I had on hand and cooked it for the recommended time. The rice was really mushy. It was all very tasty, but the texture was a bit un appealing.
While I sincerely appreciate the gluten-free shout out, just a gentle reminder: if you are cooking for someone with Celiac, use a gluten-free tamari in place of the soy sauce and make certain the sausage and chicken stock you're using is gluten-free.
I just made this recipe last night and it was a total bust :( I like all the flavors, but the texture of the rice got all mushy and all the brown, it just was not what I was expecting. I would rather just cook the chicken on the stove top with the mushrooms and serve it over rice.
Dvonhall, did you use the Chinese long grain rice or another kind?
looked sooo good. I made it w/out mushrooms since I had none at hand and wound up disappointed. needs more flavor.
Thank you! This worked very well, but I would omit the cornstarch. On a dish like this, it's less important for the marinade than it would be for a stir-fry, and it leaves an unpleasant edge to the finished dish. Also, I used well-trimmed pieces of boneless chicken thighs, which have a more tender texture and more flavor than the chicken breasts. But given those changes, I will make this again!
yum
I'm sorry, but this really wasn't very good. Lots of great flavors go in (ginger, soy, spring onions!) but out comes a brown, tasteless mush. I should have known when the recipe suggests adding chili sauce at the end.
A note on this, since I see some folks having trouble: The type of rice is not incidental here. If you substitute brown rice, short-grain rice, or any other sort of rice, you will get a different texture and the rice will quite likely be overcooked. Use long-grain rice - basmati would also work.
I made this two nights ago and loved it, really nice flavours and texture and lots of it! Nice that you could taste the flavour of the mushrooms with out too much else getting in the way. Had it cold for lunch the next and was equally good...thanks so much!
I made this tonight and it turned out great! I omitted the corn starch, and the salt (the chicken broth was already salted so was worried it would be too salty). I used jasmine rice and used a water ratio of 1 cup rice to 1.5 cups water and that seemed perfect. I used low sodium soy sauce and added an extra tablespoon of dark soy sauce as well. I also added a splash of rice wine while stir-frying the mushrooms. Turned out great, next time I might try using a low-sodium chicken broth.
Oh, I just realized I used basmati rice instead of jasmine! Turned out fine.
I should have read these comments before, as I used jasmine rice and it did come out pretty mushy. I used regular sodium soy sauce, low sodium broth, and cut back the salt by 1/4 teas, but the dish was REALLY salty. I had to add more water it was so salted--which then made my rice even mushier. It would have been better without the added 1 tsp salt it calls for. I could taste the potential and I will definitely try it again (sans salt). Anyone else experience the same?
You can also cook this perfectly with a rice cooker. Mix the raw mushrooms and sausage into the chicken mixture and add them into cooker while rice is cooking mid-way.
I made this last night - I am generally not a fan of chinese dishes and I hate hate hate mushrooms, but my husband loves both so I figured I would try it. I only had 3.5 oz of mushrooms (I was surprised the recipe calls for 10, that's about 3 packs from our local grocery) so I'm not sure if that may have effected the flavor. I also omitted the extra salt after reading some of the comments about how salty it was.
Overall the dish was very good. I wasn't blown away by it but my husband liked it enough to make himself 2 huge bowls! I used jasmine rice, and at the end of the baking time it was soft but not mushy. I had some issues with the mushrooms sticking to the bottom of my dutch oven even with the sausage grease in there, not sure if that is normal or not...I also used a chinese sausage my husband picked up which had a really interesting flavor...kind of funky, I can't decide if I like it or not.
I will make this again, but will probably try some italian sausage next time and more mushrooms.
I'm in the midst of preparing this as a vegetarian rice, not because I'm vegetarian, but because of what I have in the house - substituting butternut squash for the chicken, veggie stock for the chicken stock, white miso and a little extra oil for the sausage, and adding in some broccoli for some extra substance. Also, I don't have sushi rice so I've done brown basmati rice, and I used tamari instead of soy sauce. The pot is in the oven now, so we'll see how it turns out!!!!
This looks great. Is it one pound of chicken total, or two breasts of one pound each for a total of two pounds?
Mine was also WAY too salty. I also used normal soy sauce, low sodium broth, and the whole teaspoon of salt. Yikes! My boyfriend still liked it, but I couldn't finish my bowl. I also used brown jasmine rice (oops, I know not to use it now) and still got the smushy texture. The texture I didn't mind so much. It reminded me of a Chinese jambalaya, but the saltiness was too overpowering. Will definitely make it again sometime using basmati rice and NO extra salt.
I used Basmati rice and it turned out really mushy. It reminded me of my Grandmas casserole she used to make haha.
But the flavors were spot on. I liked it so much that I am going to remake the dish soon. When I do that I'll update the timing for the Basmati rice here.
This looks great but I HATE mushrooms. Any ideas for substitutions?
This dish was obscenely delicious. committed to memory- making it again.
I used basmati rice and it came out perfect. However, I did rinse my rice a few time until the water ran clear before adding it to the pot (this does help to get rid of the excess starch, which may make things gummy). I also used low-sodium soy sauce and omitted the 1 teaspoon of salt and it did not taste overly salty. I would definitely make this again!
I have to try this tonight - it sounds so delicious!