I first started making this sort of rice and chicken dish when I bought the Ottolenghi cookbook Jerusalem. There’s quite a few rice dishes in that book and prior to this I’d mainly made rice with East Asian food.  Ottolenghi dishes tend to be quite time consuming and require quite a few specialist ingredients. For example it took me about two and a half hours to make the Maqluba! (This included making your own spice mix, frying, boiling, oven baking, it was quite a process!) As delicious as it was it’s not often I have that sort of time to devote to a meal.

Here I’ve posted an adaptation of a Nigella Lawson recipe found in the cookbook Simply Nigella, it gives similar vibes to the Ottolenghi dishes but is much simpler to make with more accessible ingredients.

Serves 3

Time: 1hr 15

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil

• 1 onion, peeled and chopped

• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped

• ½ tsp turmeric

• 1 tsp coriander seeds

• 1 tsp cumin seeds

• 6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs

• 180g wild rice

• 60g dried cranberries

• 600ml chicken stock

• Handful finely chopped coriander

• Handful of pine nuts, toasted (optional)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180c/gas mark 4.

2. Fry the onion with the oil in the casserole dish on medium to low heat for about 5-10 minutes then add the garlic and spices.

3. Turn the heat up and cook the chicken, stir from time to time for a few minutes until sealed.

4. Add the rice and stir for one minute then add the cranberries and chicken stock and bring to the boil.

5. Put the lid on the pot and place in the oven for about 40 minutes.

6. When you remove the pot from the oven the rice should be cooked but still with a bit of bite.  Season with salt and pepper and then place pot back in the oven without the lid for about 10 minutes. You may need to use your judgement here for the best results, if the rice is cooked and the liquid has evaporated off then you’ll want to cut down the cooking time. Equally if you have a bit more liquid then you’d like then you may want to let it bubble off in the oven for a bit longer. The idea is that the rice is moist and coated in a rich sauce.

7. Stir in half the coriander and sprinkle the rest on top to serve.  A few toasted pine nuts would not go amiss here either if you have them.