Easy Chicken & Gravy with Rice

Chicken is a versatile frugal meat choice.   Chicken can bought deboned and skinned or can easily be deboned and skinned at home for more savings.  If you debone and skin at home you have the meat plus the bones for making stock.  Boneless, skinless chicken breasts are very versatile so they are one of my freezer staples.  They are great pan fried or grilled.  Quite often I will cook up several then slice for use in chicken wraps and salads.  Once sliced I package them into meal size portions and vacuum seal them, then freeze for quick meal starts. 

One of my favourite ways of cooking boneless, skinless chicken breasts is pan frying.  I sear the meat on both sides on high heat for a nice golden brown then reduce the heat and season as desired.  Pictured is the chicken dinner I made a couple of nights ago.  I started the chicken in the same fashion then after reducing the heat I seasoned lightly with garlic pepper then poured in about a half cup of water stirring to loosen the bits of chicken from searing.  I let the chicken cook until the juices were no longer pink then removed from the pan to make the gravy.  I added about a cup of chicken stock to the remaining drippings brought to a low boil and stirred in a corn starch slurry to thicken. 

While the chicken was cooking, the Thai sweet rice (Sanpatong) was cooking in the rice cooker.  Thai sweet rice is a sticky rice  In Thai the northern and northeastern regions of Thailand, this rice is eaten in place of long grain rice.  There it is traditional eaten with your hands by making the rice into a little ball and dipping it into other dishes.  Thai sweet rice should be soaked for 10 minutes before cooking.   When cooked the rice will be translucent.  I used chicken stock for the cooking liquid.  Rather than forming into balls, served the rice topped with a chicken breast with the gravy poured over it.