Happy once, happy twice,
happy chicken soup with rice

I used to sing this Maurice Sendak poem* to my kids while making them chicken soup with rice, one of the all time great comfort foods. Lately we’ve been suffering from stomach flu, which precludes most of that fresh produce I’m usually serving. Instead I made a soupy rice with a squeeze of lemon. It’s a simple dish that can be made in the rice cooker while napping.

Ingredients:

1 cup white rice (I used long grain)

5 cups homemade chicken broth: Roz’s Jewish Chicken Soup (plus a vegan version)

1 tsp lemon juice

Cook rice with 3 cups broth in rice cooker, then stir in two more cup broth when cooker is done. Let sit 1/2 hour, then turn on cooker again until rice is heated through. You can also cook rice with 5 cups broth over the stove until rice softens (about 20 minutes.) Let sit so that rice soaks up more broth, about ½ an hour. It should be soupier than regular rice.  Serve with a tsp of lemon stirred in.

If you are not up for making homemade stock and have a box of  broth on hand, you can make this recipe using 2/3 cup rice to 3 cups broth in the rice cooker, then add the last cup after the cooker goes off. It won’t be as amazing as the homemade broth version, but it is easier.

Vegetarians and Vegans can make this recipe with vegetable stock.

* To see the entire poem, from “Chicken Soup with Rice, A Book of Months” by Maurice Sendak, as sung by Carole King, click here.