Chicken and rice cakes
Struggling to get your chicken and rice in?
This meal of the week is a bit different. Although I have aimed this at bodybuilders on a pre contest diet, this recipe is one of the best choices for anyone with weight loss plans who are after a tasty meal idea.
As some of you may know, I am into bodybuilding. I competed and placed in late 2012. I did struggle with the constant "force feeding" of chicken, rice and broccoli. If any of you have done a pre contest bodybuilding diet, you will know how tough this can be... It got so bad for me early on in the 20 week diet that I literally wanted to cry every 2 hours when it came to getting this bland mixture down.
As I am really into my food, I looked at better ways to cook chicken and rice for pre contest. As this diet is extremely strict you are very limited with the type of seasoning you can use. Anything with sugar is a massive "NO NO" and if you look at the ingredients on most seasonings you will see sugar and salt. All sauces are out of the question as these have a big calorie content, most again are loaded with sugar and salt.
The calories I got had to come mainly from chicken and rice.
So these "Chicken and rice cakes" are something that I managed to invent when I was struggling one weekend when I had some time.
The measurements of chicken and rice will vary for each person if you are competing. If you are just using this as a healthy option you can follow the measurements that I used.
You will need-
4 chicken breasts
300g of wholegrain rice (uncooked)
Ground Black pepper
1 chili
1 clove of garlic
A bunch of fresh coriander
No sugar/ salt seasoning. (I used Singapore seasoning made by "Penzeys spices") but any other seasoning that meets the criteria of your diet Will do)
Olive oil or "1 cal none stick spray"
Step 1
Cook the rice so it is ready to eat, leave this to cool slightly but don't allow it to go totally cold
Step 2
Wash and cut the chicken breast into chunks. We are not looking for anything pretty here, just chop it up and spray with the 1 cal none stick spray a few times.
Step 3
Crush or finely chop the garlic (If you have seen good fellas, you can use a razor blade) and cut the chili up. Make sure you remove the seeds from the chili here if you don't want it to be too hot.
Step 4
Pull apart or chop the coriander finely and mix with the garlic, chili and coriander.
Step 5
Season the chopped chicken with the Singapore seasoning or what ever you chose to use. (the Singapore seasoning will give the food a nice spicy Asian taste). Then mix in the chili, garlic, pepper and coriander. It is best to coat all of the chicken with this seasoning, so get stuck in to it with your hands.
Step 6
Put the raw chicken covered in seasoning into a food processor and also add the rice. Blend this in short bursts, you don't want to make a raw chicken and rice soup! It is personal preference on how fine you want to go here but I like to keep it fairly course.
Step 7
Once this is mixed or "Blended" take this out of the blender and put into a bowl. Make the mixture into a ball. Half the ball and half this again, you should end up with 4 balls... Nice! Squash these balls down so they are about an inch thick
Step 8
Use the 1 cal spray to lightly grease a baking tray or some tin foil, then place the 4 cakes onto the tray and again spray with 1 cal spray (This will give the cakes a crispy finish) or if you are not on a pre- contest diet, you could top with Parmesan cheese. (I haven't tried this but I imagine that it would finish off the cakes nicely)
Step 9
Put in a preheated oven at 180 Celsius or gas mark 4 for around 30 mins or until they have started to brown. Make sure that these are cooked thoroughly before eating.
Step 10
Serve with your favorite veg and eat while hot if you can. I have also eaten these cold as I will normally make a big batch. It's best not to reheat these as reheated chicken can cause you problems if it's not done right.
As I am into experimenting in the kitchen I came up with this healthy recipe but there are things that you could do to make this more exiting, like add onions (Another no no on my pre contest diet) or cheese, change the spices you put in or maybe make a blue cheese sauce to put over the top... I'm getting hungry now so I'm going to wrap it up!
I hope this has been useful. It certainly was for me when I fancied a change from the usual chicken, rice and broccoli mix on my pre contest diet.
Good luck if you are going to try this, let me know how you get on.
By James Atkinson
If this has been useful to you, there are more articles on training, diet, healthy meal ideas and inspiration on my blog http://www.jimshealthandmuscle.com
I would love to hear from you and I am always happy to help.
I would love to hear from you and I am always happy to help.
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