Fried Chicken over Rice with Beetroot and Gravy
just made…. fried chicken fried rice!!
This is the second day of the fried chicken. It gets pulled off the bone, skin and all, and dropped over rice.
The gravy stays in the pan on the stove with a ladle in it and comes to the table that way. Nobody's plate gets drowned, everybody takes what they want, and the chicken on top stays crisp until the moment it is covered.
Cold beetroot against hot chicken is the part that sounds wrong and is the reason the plate works. Sweet, sharp, cold, earthy — it does the job a pickle does.
- Feeds
- 4
- Hands-on
- 25 minutes
- Needs
- Fried chicken
- Gravy
- Served from the pan
What you need
On the plate
- 6 pieces fried chicken, warm, pulled off the bone in large pieces
- 4 cups cooked long-grain white rice
- 3 cooked beetroot, sliced thick, cold
The gravy
- 4 tbsp butter or chicken fat
- 4 tbsp flour
- 2 cups whole milk, warmed
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 1 tbsp coarse cracked black pepper
- Salt
How it goes
1 — Warm the chicken in the oven, never the microwave
On a rack at 375°F for eight minutes. A microwave turns crisp skin into something wet and chewy in about forty seconds and it does not come back.
2 — Pull it apart in big pieces, keep the skin on
Fingers, not forks. Thumb-sized pieces with their skin attached rather than threads. Shredded chicken under gravy is baby food.
3 — Rice plain and hot, spread wide
Spread across the plate rather than mounded, so every forkful gets some. It is here to carry the gravy.
4 — Build the gravy in the same skillet
Butter and flour cooked two minutes, warm milk in slowly, then stock, then a lot of pepper. Simmer until it coats a spoon and leaves a track.
5 — Leave the ladle in the pan
Straight from the stove to the table with the ladle in it. Everything on the plate stays crisp until somebody decides otherwise.
pro tip — Gravy skins over as it sits. A knob of butter on the surface, or a stir every few minutes, keeps it smooth.
6 — Beetroot cold, down one side
Thick slices, straight from the fridge, not warmed and not dressed. The temperature difference is doing the work.
Fried chicken fried rice. Better the second day, which is the only reason to make too much. LFG.