Orzo is something new to us. I had never eaten it until we had it in a cafe on the Shetland Islands. In fact I had never heard of it. I managed to get a big bag reduced from T K Max before Christmas and had forgotten about it. When sorting out my cupboards at the start of the month I found it and so we thought that we would try to replicate the meal that we had on the Islands and make spicy chicken orzo. This is a simple meal that can be eaten hot or cold, but we prefer to eat it hot. We are adding this meal to our summer regular repertoire as adding our own cherry tomatoes will cut down the cost. We used less chicken than stated and felt that it was meaty enough.
Ingredients
2 chicken breasts ( You could make this with one chicken breast diced small as we did)
60g of chorizo (or less if money is short)
160g of cherry tomatoes
2 tbsp tomato puree.
1 tsp Cajun spice. This had a bit of a kick and so you might want more or less.
150g uncooked Orzo
1 cup of milk
1/2 cup of boiling water
Salt and pepper to season
Spinach. I added a good handful (optional)
Oil to cook
Method
- Skin and dice the chicken breast and dice the chorizo.
- In a large frying pan, heat just a little oil and add the chicken and chorizo and cook for about 4 few minutes. Extra oil will be added by the chorizo and so you hardly need any oil. Cook the chicken until lightly browned.
- Halve the cherry tomatoes and add to the pan.
- Cook for another 3 or 4 minutes.
- Stir in the tomato puree and Cajun spice. Make sure that the meat is evenly covered.
- Add the uncooked orzo, the cup of milk and half a cup of boiling water to the pan.
- Bring the mixture to the boil and then turn the heat down to a simmer.
- Stir to combine and then cook for about 8 minutes, stirring regularly so that it does not stick.
- Check that the orzo is tender, and if not cook for another couple of minutes.
- The sauce should have thickened by now.
- Add the spinach leaves in the last few minutes of cooking as the sauce. The finished result was more or less like a risotto.
- Season with salt and pepper and garnish with herbs. I used some basil.
We served ours with salad and garlic bread. It is an easy meal to make if you are entertaining or as a quickly made meal after a day at work.
This sounds yummy, I have a bag of Orzo in the pantry, going to give your recipe a go x
Brilliant. I hope that you like it
I’ve only just heard of orzo and bought a bag last week. Thanks for the recipe. I like this better than ordinary pasta , it feels lighter.
No worries. Yes I like it too. It is almost like eating barley or rise, but is a nice change. Thanks for sharing
This sounds lovely will try next week. Will be different as I normally use pancetta, onion, garlic and peas in ours
I will have to try that, thanks.
Definitely going to try this as have a couple of bags of orzo in my store cupboard.
This recipe looked very appetizing and I made it for our evening meal yesterday, serving with some garlic bread. Oh my! So very tasty, a lovely spicy kick from the chorizo, we all loved it and it is definitely going to be made on a regular basis! Thank you Toni for all the lovely meals you share with us all!
:)
Aww thanks for the feedback. I am glad that you like it. We are entertaining tomorrow and so it will be part of our meal then. I think that we will eat it often now too as I have a load of Orzo to eat up. Luckily Mr S really likes it too!