Chicken in a Pot with Lemon Orzo

Name: Chicken in a Pot with Lemon Orzo
Cook time: 1 h 45 min
Total time: 1 h 45 min
Cuisine: European, Italian, Mediterranean
Ingredients: 1 whole chicken (approx. 3½ pounds); 3 fat cloves of garlic; 2 medium carrots (approx. 10 ounces) 2 medium leeks (approx. 5 cups sliced, white parts only); 1 tablespoon olive oil; 2 lemons; 2 teaspoons dried tarragon (or dried thyme); 2 teaspoons flaky sea salt or kosher salt (or 1 teaspoon fine sea salt); ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes; 6 cups cold water; 1 ½ cups orzo pasta; ⅓ cup finely chopped Italian parsley, plus more to serve; Freshly grated Parmesan, to serve

Instructions

Cook:1h 45min

This is not exactly the same as perhaps the most precious recipe in my repertoire, My Mother’s Praised Chicken, which found a home in my eighth book, Kitchen, but it owes a lot to it. A family favorite, it’s a simple one-pot dish which brings comfort and joy, and it is my pleasure to share that with you. It’s not in the spirit of things to be utterly speciﬁc with this kind of cooking: if you’re feeding small children, for example, you may not want to add the red pepper ﬂakes. Similarly, you may want to use just one lemon, rather than the two I like. Your chicken may weigh more or less: the ones I get tend to be around 3½ pounds. And although I have speciﬁed the Dutch oven I always use, you obviously will use the one you have, which will make a difference to how quickly everything cooks, how much evaporation there will be, and so on. Don’t let these things trouble you unduly; this is a very forgiving dish. It doesn’t rely on precision timing: the chicken, leeks, and carrots are meant to be soft, and I even like it when the orzo is cooked far beyond the timing speciﬁed on the package. It’s also open to variation, owing to what’s in your kitchen. I could go on, but there is no need to add complications: this is a simple recipe that brings deep contentment.

Updated at: Mon, 22 Aug 2022 22:45:06 GMT