Rodney Scott’s Chicken Perloo
This certainly looks like a hearty dish
I’ve made Jambalaya before, so this recipe wasn't too new to me
Time: 1 hr 30 minutes:
Ingredient Availability: 5/5
Difficulty: 1/5
When reading the introduction to this book, Rodney mentioned Chicken Perloo (pronounced per-low). By the way he described it, I knew that it was one of the first recipes of his I wanted to try. Looking at the pictures and judging by the description, I was thinking that it would be similar to a jambalaya but a little soupier. I haven’t had much experience with soupy rice dishes, so this recipe would be new to me in more ways than one.
Key Ingredients and Omissions:
Everything here is pretty easy to find
This recipe’s ingredients list is pretty simple, so I used everything it called for. I even included the garnish this time.
I used the smoked chicken from this book, as the recipe called for. You could surely use another chicken recipe or even a store bought rotisserie. You will be missing out on some smokiness, but you use his rub in this recipe, so the flavors should be similar.
Tools:
Dutch oven
Cooking Review:
Prep: 30 minutes.
Prepping for this recipe included chopping the onion, bell pepper, celery, and garlic, as well as shredding half of a smoked chicken. You may argue that making the chicken and the rub are also part of the prep, but I say it’s totally separate. I chopped the green onions while I heated the dutch oven on the stove.
Yes, I did chop the green onions and I have proof
Cooking vegetables and tomatoes: 25 minutes
After heating the dutch oven and adding the oil, I added the peppers, celery, onion, and garlic to the pot. I stirred it occasionally, making sure nothing was burning. You need to be especially careful with the garlic, as it can easily burn. It took about 11 minutes for everything to soften. Next, I added the stewed tomatoes and rib rub and cooked them for about 13 minutes. Once all of the water has evaporated, this step should be done. You will likely still see some liquid, which is probably mostly oil. I also began to break down the tomatoes in this step. It wasn’t mentioned in the recipe, but I had some pretty big tomato pieces that I didn’t want in the final product.
Boiling and Baking: 28 minutes
I added the chicken broth along with the rice and stirred everything together before letting it come to a boil. It took about 8 minutes for the pot to come to a boil. I, then, put the dutch oven into the oven to bake for 20 minutes. The rice was well cooked at that point. I put some into a bowl and topped it with some green onions. I stirred the rest of the green onions through the rest of the Perloo.
Analysis:
The first thing that comes to mind when eating this is jambalaya without the sausage. The base flavors are very similar to jambalaya, it’s just a little soupier. I will say that after letting the dish cool over night and reheating it the next day, there was very little additional liquid. I feel like the addition of sausage would have been nice, as the chicken didn’t have all that much flavor on its own in this dish. While there was a pleasant variety of textures, the flavors were pretty monotone here. It’s not that it wasn’t well seasoned or bland by any means, just a little boring at times. I think that I could decipher a little more smokiness in this dish than from the chicken on its own, but just slightly. One more thing I want to point out is that while the scallions add yet another layer of texture, I didn’t find that the flavor really complemented everything else. The slight freshness it brings is kind of over powered by everything else. In any case, I’m giving this recipe a 7/10. It’s not bad by any means, but it could surely be better. Given how easy it is to make, only requiring one pot to cook, it’s hard to give it any lower.
