ReCPY: Rolled Chicken Breast Stuffed with Sticky Rice

I've been reading on many Japanese blogs that people are stuffing sticky rice inside a whole chicken, which absorbs all the good stuff from the bird, and makes a very nice sticky rice accompanying a perfectly roasted bird.

I was going to roast the whole bird, but realized I would be the only one who would eat any part other than the breast--such is the tragic fact about gays who believe that chicken breast = good and healthy; chicken thighs= bad.

Anyhow, I decided to do something fun with the boring chicken breast.

First buy the chicken with the skins-on, which in many cases are also bone-in. Just cut the bones off, and use it to make chicken stock for later. Brine the bird with salt, sugar, soy sauce and water and refrigerate for at last 6 hours to overnight.



After taking bird out of the brine, butterfly them so that you can stuff sticky rice inside.



For the rice stuffing, first wash the sticky rice, then soak it in water for 6 hours to overnight. Then drain.



For a cup of rice, chop up 1 carrot, 2 stalks of celery, half an onion, and cook it altogether until the ingredients are translucent.



Add rice, and cook until rice becomes translucent.



Meanwhile, I made chicken stock with chicken bones, 1 celery, 1 carrot, and half the onion, and 2 garlic with about 4 cups of water. Simmer together to make chicken broth. Make sure to strain it using a paper towel to get rid of all the fat from the liquid.



Add about 2 cups of chicken stock into rice mixture, and cook it down. Also add about 2 tbsp of soy sauce and cook until almost all the liquid is absorbed.

Once the rice cools down, scoop some down on the butterflied chicken, then roll it up.



After rolling, tie them up to keep the shape. Place them on baking dish.



You can make a glaze using regular marmalade with soy sauce--but I had Korean yuzu jam, so I mixed this with soy sauce and olive oil and basted on top of chicken.



Already looks yummy.



Pour about 1 cup of chicken stock on the bottom and bake together in 380˚F oven for about 40-45 minutes the chickens are cooked through.

If you have leftover rice, wrap it up in aluminum foil, seal it and bake along with the chicken.





Stuffed rice was a bit al dente, but the meat was very moist.



Whenever you HAVE to cook chicken breast, the key is to brine it overnight to avoid drying up. Also, if you can find skin-on breasts (even if you are going to peel it off when you eat), that will keep the breast meat moist enough.

This dish looks complicated, but it's actually not too difficult. Try this yourself!