Propellers Chicken and Rice—the concept and the dish—has attained legendary status at Florida’s Embry-Riddle Aeronautical College (ERAU). You could say it is blasted off into new atmospheres of taste and broken the seem barrier on university student appreciation. Each and every year in March, the Sodexo crew at ERAU hosts the Rooster and Rice competition. Pupils on campus handle fan pages for the dish on social media. It’s a simple menu product that has witnessed a few a long time of results, overseen by Nabil Guirguis, longtime member of the foodservice group
More than $200 of Hen and Rice t-shirts have been marketed at this year’s event raffles and giveaways and prize wheels amped up the excitement, and an “Angry Chickens” table permitted learners to flick toy chickens at cups, aka “the clucking hilarious concentrate on sport.” But at the heart of all the extraordinary marketing and advertising and razzle dazzle is the legendary hen and rice dish that begun it all: Marinated rooster breasts with tzatziki, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and then pupils can select from lots and loads of hot sauces.
“We started out the rooster and rice way again, and it is the same issue each and every time we don’t improve the recipe,” Guirguis suggests. “The pupils started out to arrive for it, and it just obtained famous. And it’ll be the similar if you get it tomorrow or you get it future 7 days,” he suggests, emphasizing the will need for consistency in ingredients and portion sizing and citing quickly-foodstuff giant McDonald’s as his inspiration for that pretty important element of higher education and college foodservice.
A fine, feathered and festive day at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University will take flight, all in honor of the iconic Propellers Hen and Rice.
“I made use of to do the job at a Turkish restaurant in Kuwait, and I instructed the owner that we have to have to be like McDonald’s in terms of consistency to be prosperous,” Guirguis says. “Now the dude is a millionaire.”
The students are so wild for it that standard “Taco Tuesdays” have grow to be “Tzatziki Tuesdays.” When Rooster and Rice goes off the menu—for example a single summer months semester—students can and will protest, in accordance to ERAU Sodexo Marketing Director Candice Kingery.
Environment tour
American Eating Creations Chef and catering mastermind Jonathan Pye recognizes chicken and rice’s cozy, comforting and homey vibes as it contrasts with an adventurous, globe-spanning wanderlust.
“Chicken and rice has these kinds of a homecooked sense to it,” Pye says. “It just will take you again to your childhood and is pretty nostalgic. And then you can go in a million distinctive instructions with rice, from soups and stews to fine eating and then ethnically from Indian dishes to the Mediterranean, rice paired with chicken is a winner whichever direction you go.”
Pye’s takes on rooster and rice contain prosciutto-wrapped rooster with wild rice child zucchini and champagne sauce Korean bibimbap with hen, rice, roasted ‘shrooms, gochugang spinach, radishes, bean sprouts and bibimbap sauce and Thai chili-chicken skewers with jasmine rice and baby veggies.
HHS Chef Eric Pierce keeps it rustic with this Mediterranean rooster and orzo dish.
The correct rice
The great rice for your signature chicken and rice dish may perhaps not be rice at all. It could be quinoa (any grain, actually), couscous or cauliflower “rice,” as uncovered in Morrison Healthcare’s fajita-spiced hen and (riced) cauliflower bowl, leaning into the healthful bowl pattern in a enjoyable, spiced-up way.
Morrison Healthcare cooks have also been swapping in whole grains, as in a spicy-sweet rooster and quinoa bowl, while even now employing common white rice in other bowls, like the new hibachi chicken and rice bowl from Kazan, Morrison’s new hibachi idea.
UCLA Chef Joey Martin would make rice the star in fragrant spiced rooster with snap peas and forbidden rice. Sounds so intriguing, suitable? Forbidden rice is black and offers a remarkable backdrop for a plate of spicy orange hen with Chinese five-spice and scorching Szechuan pepper.
Michigan State’s caprese halal chicken grain bowl is a refreshing phase into spring.
And occasionally, rice can be (gasp!) pasta! HHS Chef Eric Pierce makes use of orzo in his rustic rendition of roasted chicken and rice.
PS: Including turmeric to plain white rice bumps up the health and fitness halo and gives it the cheeriest, most optimistic yellow shade.
Let’s listen to it for halal
No dialogue of chicken and rice as an icon would be full devoid of giving halal a shout-out. At Michigan Condition University, Chef Kurt Kwiatkowski and the crew offer you a lot of halal selections, and has established one thing new and fresh new for spring, a mashup known as the caprese halal rooster grain bowl. With seasoned halal rooster, fresh new mozz, basil and a balsamic glaze, this is a excellent way to stage into summer season with chicken and rice ability.
