Have you ever had the soup can classic chicken rice casserole? I admit, I have not, though the idea of it intrigued me recently. It sort of reminds me of my mother’s arroz con pollo, but with mushrooms and without tomatoes. With this recipe I set out to make a scratch cooking version of chicken rice casserole, sans the cans, with the goal of extracting as much flavor as I could out of the ingredients. First you will note that we use chicken thighs, instead of the more popular (and more expensive by the way) breasts. The thighs have more flavor, and are a little fattier, meaning they won’t dry out with long cooking. The chicken pieces are browned in olive oil, removed, and then the onions are cooked in the same pan with the chicken browned bits. Then the mushrooms are browned, and the whole pan is deglazed with dry sherry. All goes into a casserole dish with stock, cream, sour cream, herbs, rice, topped with the chicken, and baked in the oven. The rice cooks in the stock, the chicken finishes cooking, and the resulting dish is, as my 10-yr-old nephew says “really good”.

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