Orzo / Rice Recipies

2026-09-19 (Updated 2026-09-27)

stolen and modified from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=016HJe2eyb4

Spicy Chicken thigh

Basic idea:

chicken (salt && pepper) -> shrooms -> (garlic && onions) -> beer -> orzo -> broth -> spices -> before_serving_group

Ingredients

  1. Chicken thigh (obviously)
  2. Shrooms
  3. Smells group
    • onions or shallots
    • garlic
  4. Beer or cognac for deglazing
  5. chicken broth
    • Broth block one portion (1 / 4 block, one block is 250ml)
    • red pepper sauce
    • paprika
  6. Black pepper
  7. Italian spices
  8. Before serving:
    • Pecorino cheese
    • butter
    • cream

Steps

  1. Brown the chicken , add salt and pepper, then stir fry.
  2. Chop shrooms to slices, put in when chicken is almost done. Try to brown them too.
  3. Roughly chop garlic and onions (he used shallots), put in and stir until soft
  4. Deglaze with beer (he used cognac)
  5. Orzo in. (If using rice ignore this step)
  6. Put in “chicken broth” group
    • If cooking orzo, put broth in with a 2:1 broth vs stuff ratio, perfer adding more water
  7. Put italian spices in, add black pepper.
  8. Simmer for the time specified in package. Stir for the last half of the time.
  9. When almost done, put “before serving” group in. Salt to taste.

Notes

The shrooms plays very nice with the chicken thighs, the important part is to properly brown the chicken.

Also, shrooms should be put in before onions, otherwise it’s harder for shrooms to brown, and onions has a chance to burn.

The blocks and the salt added can be over-ly salty. be careful about salt added for the chicken.

Update: just use 1 / 4 of broth block and then salt to taste.

For orzo, prefer adding more water. Otherwise time of cooking orzo has to be extended and they will be unevenly cooked.

Spiciness is optional, if only put in paprika but not pepper sauce, it will taste as good, while emphasizing the chicken’s flavour.

My modifications:

Amount of water:

if using rice, no need to put too much since I can just pour the food into rice, although it’s slightly less healthy. (Eating all of the oil)

Future experimentations

Beany Pea Pancetta

Adam used corns rather than the beans, I think beans could also work?

Basic idea:

pancetta -> onions -> orzo (fry a bit first) -> corn juice and liquid -> corn -> frozen pea -> pepper -> butter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=016HJe2eyb4&t=41s

Ingredients

Steps

  1. Fry the pancetta in low to mid fire to render the fat out.
  2. Roughly chop onion and Optionally garlic too. Add them in, and try to brown them.
  3. Add beans and peas
  4. Add “Broth group”
    • As usual, 2:1 water to stuff, prefer more water.
    • Optionally, add SEAS pepper sauce for spiciness
  5. Bring to a boil, Orzo in
  6. Cook the orzo for the time spedified in their package. stir in the last half of the time.
  7. Add “before serving group”

Notes

This dish emphasizes on the creamy taste of beans & peas, while being complemented by the aggressive and layered character of pancetta, which is then accompanied by the sweet foundation of onion.

Less aggressive meat like bacon or ham can be used, that moves the focus more to the beans and the taste profile will be more bland.

This is extremely suitable for a sauce pan since the amount of browning is managable. That way it can both be cooked and served in one pan, reducing the pans I need to clean.

Adam’s recipe only add beans (corns) when the broth is boiling to reduce the total time it takes to boil. I deem this a micro-optimization and is un-necessary.

Adam’s recipe also only add pea at the end “to keep them green”, however it’s also un-necessary since the pea is still green after cooking for 9 mins (time on my orzo package).

I only add orzo after the broth is boiling, so that the cook time for orzo can be precisely timed.

Future experimentations