Citrus Chicken and Rice
Chicken, rice, dried fruit, and warm spice in one dutch oven over coals.
- calories
- 520
- weight
- 6 oz
- cal / oz
- 87
- protein
- 32 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 50 min
- total time
- 60 min
- water
- 710 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Olive oil | 2 tbsp | |
|---|---|---|
| Canned chicken breast | three 10 oz cans | drained; swap in fresh cubed breast if you have a cooler |
| Dried minced onion | 3 tbsp | stands in for 1 small onion |
| Granulated garlic | 2 tsp | stands in for 2 tbsp minced |
| Dried apple slices | 1 cup | broken into bite-size pieces |
| Dried orange slices or candied orange peel | 1/2 cup | chopped small |
| Long-grain white rice | 1 1/2 cups | uncooked |
| Water | 3 cups | |
| Lemon juice | 1 tbsp | from a squeeze bottle, or one small fresh lemon |
| Cinnamon | 1 tsp | |
| Nutmeg | 1/2 tsp | |
| Curry powder | 1/2 tsp | |
| Salt | 1/2 tsp |
Method
- Build a coal bed and set the dutch oven over it. Aim for frying heat, roughly 375 degrees: about 25 briquettes underneath for a 12-inch oven.
- Pour in the oil. Add the drained chicken, dried onion, and garlic. Stir often for 10 minutes until the onion rehydrates in the oil and the chicken picks up some color.
- Add the 3 cups of water and the lemon juice. Scrape the bottom.
- Stir in the rice, dried apple, dried orange, cinnamon, nutmeg, curry, and salt.
- Lid on. Pull most of the coals out from under and move them to the lid so you are down near simmer heat, about 225 degrees. Roughly 8 coals below, 12 on top.
- Simmer 40 minutes without lifting the lid more than twice. Done when the rice is soft and the water is gone.
- Pull it off the coals and let it sit lidded for five minutes before serving.
The original is a fresh-produce dutch oven meal: raw chicken, a whole onion, an apple, an orange. Dried fruit and canned chicken carry the same job without a cooler. Dried apple and orange rehydrate in the cooking liquid and give the rice back the moisture and acid the fresh fruit would have, and the water measurement stays at 3 cups because the fruit is drinking some of it.
Heat control is the whole recipe. Ten minutes of real frying heat is what gets flavor into the oil before the rice goes in; after that the oven has to come down to a bare simmer or the bottom layer of rice scorches while the top stays raw. Moving coals from under the oven to the lid is the fastest way to make that drop.
Packing
Combine the rice, dried onion, garlic, cinnamon, nutmeg, curry, and salt in one zip bag at home. Dried fruit in a second bag, oil in a leakproof bottle, canned chicken and lemon juice as-is. At the fire you are opening four things, not twelve.
Variations
- With a cooler, use three fresh boneless breasts cut into cubes and one fresh onion. Brown them the same 10 minutes.
- Swap the dried apple and orange for chopped dried apricot if you want the acid without the sweetness.
- A handful of raisins and a pinch more curry pushes it toward a pilaf.
https://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/recipe/citrus_chicken-2434.asp