Smoked Rice, Part 2
When I smoked the rice for my Brown Rice Salad, I also smoked a dry pan of raw brown rice for later use, because I was curious how it would turn out. This Sunday, I had a chance to play with cooking it, to fantastic results! I didn't think it could pair with just anything, so I decided to experiment and try cold-smoking some teriyaki marinated chicken thighs before doing a chicken stir fry with them, so that the flavors would blend better. I wanted to cold-smoke the chicken, rather than cook it, is because I wanted the flavor of smoke-cooking, but texture of stir frying, so that was my solution.
I started by marinating boneless, skinless chicken thighs in a teriyaki marinade that I made (ginger, soy sauce, oil, garlic, water, brown sugar, sherry). I marinated them for 45 minutes in the refrigerator. I had boned out and remove the skin from thighs myself, but I forgot to pound them to flatten them out like I had intended to do before I started to marinate. I briefly considered doing it when I removed them from the marinade, but I had visions of cleaning marinade splatter from every surface of my kitchen, so I thought better of it. It's not like they were really thick anyway.
The thighs went in the smoker for cold-smoking, with a chunk of apple wood in the wood box, and the cold smoke baffle in the bottom slot. I have a pan of ice on top of that, and the chicken is on a rack in the next slot, almost sitting on the pan of ice. This is good, because I want it to stay as cold as possible. I had the chicken probed to make sure that the temperature didn't rise at all. In the entire time it was in there, the temp didn't change.
I turned the smoker on to 150ºF for 20 minutes to get the smoke going, and then shut it off. I let the chicken sit in the smoker for another 20 minutes to get some smoke flavor on it. Like I said before, it is pretty much sitting on the ice, so it's not getting warm. For more smoke flavor you could let it go for longer, but I started to get nervous about food safety, so I took it out.
While the chicken was smoking, I started the rice. Even dry, it smelled smoky. It took the normal (45 minutes-ish) time to cook. I was nervous that it would just taste like burnt rice, but it didn't. It was good and smoky, but a little much on it's own.
When the thighs were done cold-smoking, I removed them from the smoker, cut them up into bite sized pieces (remember, everything cold-smoked is still raw!) and stir-fried them with some extra (not reserved from the marinating process) teriyaki sauce and almonds. I removed those from the pan, added some fresh red onion, garlic, and green onion, along with some frozen bagged stir fry veggies and more teriyaki sauce, and stir-fried it all until ready. I added the chicken/almond mixture back in, heated it through, and was ready to eat!
To serve, I topped the rice with a little soy sauce, then the stir fry, and then some green onions. It was delicious. The smoked rice went great with the teriyaki sauce, and it was so amazingly yummy! Even Clayton, who does not have the most adventurous taste buds when it comes to foods involving grains or veggies, gobbled this up and was raving about how it was the best thing ever. I will most certainly be making this again, and smoked rice will be something in my pantry.
I started by marinating boneless, skinless chicken thighs in a teriyaki marinade that I made (ginger, soy sauce, oil, garlic, water, brown sugar, sherry). I marinated them for 45 minutes in the refrigerator. I had boned out and remove the skin from thighs myself, but I forgot to pound them to flatten them out like I had intended to do before I started to marinate. I briefly considered doing it when I removed them from the marinade, but I had visions of cleaning marinade splatter from every surface of my kitchen, so I thought better of it. It's not like they were really thick anyway.
The thighs went in the smoker for cold-smoking, with a chunk of apple wood in the wood box, and the cold smoke baffle in the bottom slot. I have a pan of ice on top of that, and the chicken is on a rack in the next slot, almost sitting on the pan of ice. This is good, because I want it to stay as cold as possible. I had the chicken probed to make sure that the temperature didn't rise at all. In the entire time it was in there, the temp didn't change.
I turned the smoker on to 150ºF for 20 minutes to get the smoke going, and then shut it off. I let the chicken sit in the smoker for another 20 minutes to get some smoke flavor on it. Like I said before, it is pretty much sitting on the ice, so it's not getting warm. For more smoke flavor you could let it go for longer, but I started to get nervous about food safety, so I took it out.
While the chicken was smoking, I started the rice. Even dry, it smelled smoky. It took the normal (45 minutes-ish) time to cook. I was nervous that it would just taste like burnt rice, but it didn't. It was good and smoky, but a little much on it's own.
When the thighs were done cold-smoking, I removed them from the smoker, cut them up into bite sized pieces (remember, everything cold-smoked is still raw!) and stir-fried them with some extra (not reserved from the marinating process) teriyaki sauce and almonds. I removed those from the pan, added some fresh red onion, garlic, and green onion, along with some frozen bagged stir fry veggies and more teriyaki sauce, and stir-fried it all until ready. I added the chicken/almond mixture back in, heated it through, and was ready to eat!
To serve, I topped the rice with a little soy sauce, then the stir fry, and then some green onions. It was delicious. The smoked rice went great with the teriyaki sauce, and it was so amazingly yummy! Even Clayton, who does not have the most adventurous taste buds when it comes to foods involving grains or veggies, gobbled this up and was raving about how it was the best thing ever. I will most certainly be making this again, and smoked rice will be something in my pantry.
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