Chicken Perloo

Updated March 20, 2024

Chicken Perloo
Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Andie McMahon.
Total Time
1 hour
Prep Time
10 minutes
Cook Time
50 minutes
Rating
4(880)
Comments
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The supremely comforting one-pot rice dish, perloo (pronounced every which way, including PER-low, PER-la and per-LOO), is a Lowcountry staple with roots in West Africa. This Charleston version from “Rodney Scott’s World of BBQ” by Rodney Scott and Lolis Eric Elie (Clarkson Potter, 2021) calls for two key ingredients: Charleston Gold rice, an heirloom grain, and leftover smoked chicken. Feel free to use arborio rice or another short-grain variety if you can’t get Charleston Gold; and you can buy the smoked chicken from your local smoke shop or BBQ restaurant, or in a pinch, use grocery store rotisserie chicken. You’ll just want to compensate for the absence of smokiness by adding a pinch of smoked paprika, a whisper of fire. —Eric Kim

Featured in: A Supremely Comforting One-Pot Rice Dish

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Ingredients

Yield:4 servings
  • ¼cup olive oil
  • 6celery stalks, cut into ¼-inch pieces
  • 1large green bell pepper, cut into ¼-inch pieces
  • 1medium yellow onion, cut into ¼-inch pieces
  • 3large garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 1(14-ounce) can stewed tomatoes
  • 2teaspoons dry rib rub spice (see Tip)
  • Salt
  • 6cups chicken stock (see Tip)
  • 1cup Charleston Gold or arborio rice
  • 12ounces smoked or rotisserie chicken meat, pulled into large pieces (from roughly half a bird)
  • Chopped scallions, for garnish
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (4 servings)

753 calories; 34 grams fat; 8 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 17 grams monounsaturated fat; 5 grams polyunsaturated fat; 69 grams carbohydrates; 8 grams dietary fiber; 13 grams sugars; 42 grams protein; 2031 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

  2. Step 2

    In a Dutch oven or other large, heavy pot, heat the oil over medium. Add the celery, bell pepper, onion and garlic, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables become translucent and soft, about 10 minutes.

  3. Step 3

    Add the stewed tomatoes, rib rub and a pinch of salt to the sautéed vegetables and cook, stirring occasionally, until all the liquid is gone and the mixture begins to caramelize on the bottom of the pot, about 10 minutes.

  4. Step 4

    Add the stock and bring to a boil, raising the heat if needed. Stir in the rice and smoked chicken and transfer to the oven.

  5. Step 5

    Bake, uncovered, until the rice is soft and cooked through, about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, season with salt to taste and garnish with the scallions.

Tips
  • You can buy and use any dry spice mix meant for ribs or you can make your own according to Rodney’s recipe: Mix 2 tablespoons kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal), 1 tablespoon MSG, 1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper, 1 tablespoon paprika, 1 tablespoon chili powder, 1 tablespoon packed light brown sugar, ½ tablespoon garlic powder, ½ tablespoon onion powder and ¼ teaspoon cayenne.
  • If you have some leftover potlikker (the leftover liquid after you cook a pot of greens or beans), use that instead of chicken stock.

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Ratings

4 out of 5
880 user ratings
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Comments

Plenty of "genuine" Perloo recipes out there call for 5-6 cups. Why not just say, "some of us like our Perloo with less stock," instead of throwing shade at the recipe?

Six cups of stock is way too much. Three cups is more than enough if you want genuine Perloo. If you want chicken, rice, and tomato stew, use 6 cups.

Made this and it was great. Not much smoked chicken in these parts so I used rotisserie. I had home made stock frozen so I put it in the Instant Pot and chucked in a smoked ham hock to get the smoke flavor. Only thing I added was some collard greens and dayum, real good.

If you want to add "smoke" to chicken that doesn't already have it, Try some "Liquid Smoke". It's available on almost every grocery's shelves I have examined. I think it's by Haddon House. I've been using this in my lemon flavored BBQ sauce and dozens of other applications for as long as I've been cooking - and that's going on 60 years! A little goes a long way.

We had this for Christmas dinner, for our immediate family who were together, and it was great for a winter night. We found this filling and warm with great aromatics and very tasty given a small amount of effort on Christmas afternoon to bring it together when everyone was a little tired. I wound up smoking boneless chicken breasts low and slow on the Kamado grill on Christmas Eve for this dish, and the flavor and aromas did not disappoint. But when I have the chance to do this next I will pull the breasts from the grill at a lower temperature (less than fully cooked) to let them finish in the hot stock and oven. Maybe 140-145 degrees Fahrenheit is the right pull temperature, as the breasts tightened a little more than I prefer from the fully cooked smoked breasts I had made. Like others I found a little less stock worked well (I used about 4.25 cups) with a very moist product that was less than soup. I might have liked a little more rice, so next time I might get closer to the six cups of stock the recipe calls for, but with 1.25 or 1.33 cups of rice instead of the prescribed 1 cup.

Check your Amish market (if you have one) for smoked chicken.

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Credits

Recipe from “Rodney Scott’s World of BBQ” by Rodney Scott (Clarkson Potter, 2021)

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