While I'd originally planned on using an entire bird for Honey-Baked Chicken, I didn't feel like dealing with making it AND the sides to accompany. So I conjured memories of chicken recipes from the past with sides included, remembering way back when to October of '09, when I made a dish from Better Homes and Gardens, essentially an entire chicken in a casserole.
And so I made that Chicken with Black Beans and Rice dish. After all, I had the ingredients and once wrote that most of the time was waiting for stuff to cook rather slapping things together over a stove continuously.
Well, it seems that my palate is much more refined now. I won't say that this dish is bad. It just isn't that great. While edible, there was no boom-chicka-wow-wa about it. No flavor explosion. I will maintain the fact that it runs circles around Bittman's Chicken and Rice as that stuff was a major let-down. Sorry Bittman, but the truth should be told.
The chicken coating was a little too much. Granted, that was my fault for doubling it in the first place when I made it the first time, but beyond somewhat flacid, over-spiced skin, the chicken was too dry. The rice however, was fantastic. I loved it. At first, it seemed a little too much on the spice side, but as I ate less of the chicken and simply enjoyed the rice, the more I really liked it. The rice components of beans, corn, and the rice itself made me happy for having made it. That certainly made up for the inadequate chicken. And it seems that was my take on it the first time around.
While my palate seems to have become more refined, my preparation experience over the last year has also come into play as I shaved off a quarter hour from the entire recipe. Mise en place is a genuinely good rule to follow.
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