Chicken burrito bowl

I'll be straight with you. I don't have too many photos of this burrito bowl. It's also not perhaps as artistically arranged as I'd like. But there's nothing worse than food which has gone cold and this, this is glorious food. Burrito bowls this good wait for no one.

If you're in the US, it's Chipotle, or in the UK, it's Tortilla. Whichever chain you have in your part of the world, the best thing on the menu is always the burrito bowl. I've always been puzzled by the addition of a tortilla wrap - why create a barrier to all the good stuff? It's just unnecessary.

No, a burrito bowl is all about that fluffy cilantro rice. The juicy shreds of chicken. The fresh bite of the pico de gallo. The contrast of the hot, spicy beans and the cool and creamy guacamole. Ugh, I wish I could describe just how tender and flavourful this chicken actually is. I wish I could give you a forkful of this bowl. In fact, I wish I could just invite you home and make this for you. I'm sorry. Here are a couple of pictures and the recipe for now. It's really easy, I swear.

I promise there is cilantro rice in this bowl. It's just buried under all those amazing toppings.

Being both British and Indian, I normally call the star of this show coriander. But when I'm making a burrito bowl, I like to don my best sexy telenovela accent and call it cilantro... is this wrong? I don't know. Maybe I should stop doing that. At any rate, I LOVE coriander/cilantro, it just makes everything better. And this bowl is a cilantro-lover's dream because it's the not-so-secret ingredient in almost every component.

Okay, there are a lot of parts to this recipe but there isn't that much actual work involved. I get the chicken in the oven and by the time it's done, so is everything else. This isn't quick cooking, it's the joyous kind you do on a lazy weekend, with some music and plenty of taste-testing as you go. Make only the toppings you like. You can even buy the guacamole and pico de gallo if you need to... but where's the fun in that? I've created the recipe according to my tastes but feel free to put a little more of this or a little less of that. It's your burrito bowl.

Chicken burrito bowl

Serves 3-4.

Tender shredded chicken

INGREDIENTS

• 3 chicken thighs, bone-in, skin-on*
• 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/5 tsp ground pepper

METHOD

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Mix together all the spices and then sprinkle over the base of your roasting tin (I used a rectangular glass dish).

Drizzle over the olive oil.

Add the chicken thighs and mix thoroughly into the spices and olive oil. Rub the spice mixture all over the chicken, including under the skin, to make sure the flavours permeate as it cooks.

Bake for one hour or until the juices run clear and the meat against the bone is fully cooked and no longer pink.

When cool enough to handle, use two forks to shred the chicken in the same dish you used to cook it, discarding the bones and skin. This allows the chicken shreds to soak up all the escaping flavours and stay tender.

Notes: I used pretty big (628g) bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs because it was all we could find today, but you can absolutely do this with the boneless, skinless chicken thighs I'd usually buy in London. In that case, I'd suggest using 6 chicken thighs instead of 3 as these can be quite small, and reducing the cooking time to 25-30 minutes.

Zingy cilantro rice

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup white or brown rice*
• Juice of half a lemon/lime
• 3 tablespoons chopped cilantro

METHOD

Rinse rice thoroughly and cook according to package instructions.

Drain your rice and mix in the lemon/lime juice and chopped cilantro.

Notes: I usually swap in brown rice for white wherever I can, because it's such an easy healthy substitution. The only downside is it takes considerably longer. If you're cooking rice in a pan on the stove, white basmati rice usually takes about 10 to 12 minutes, whereas brown rice can take up to 45 minutes to cook properly.

Easy guacamole

INGREDIENTS

• 1 ripe avocado
• 2 1/2 tablespoons lemon/lime juice
• 2 tablespoons chopped red onion
• 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
• Salt, to taste

METHOD

Mash your avocado with a fork or the back of a spoon until nice and smooth.

Add the lemon/lime juice, red onion, cilantro and salt. Mix well.

Pico de gallo

INGREDIENTS

• 1 medium tomato
• 1 red onion
• 1-2 green chillies/jalapeño or serrano peppers
• 2-3 tablespoons chopped cilantro
• Juice of half a lemon
• Pinch of ground cumin (optional)
• Pinch of garlic powder (optional)
• Salt, to taste

METHOD

Dice the tomato and onion and finely chop the chilli.

In a small bowl, mix all the ingredients together and check for seasoning.

Spiced black beans

INGREDIENTS

• 1 400g can of black beans
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder or 1 minced garlic clove
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/3-1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
• 1/4 teaspoon ground pepper

METHOD

Pour the contents of the can of black beans into a small saucepan, including the liquid. If you've accidentally drained your black beans, just fill the can with water and use that instead.

Add in all the spices and mix thoroughly. This is the time to adjust the seasoning to your liking.

Heat over a medium flame for 5-7 minutes, until it's hot all the way through and the liquid has reduced by at least a third.

ASSEMBLY

Phew, writing that all up took longer than it took to actually make it! But as you can see, it's not actually that difficult. To serve, I like to line up the rice and all the toppings and let everyone help themselves to a bit of everything. Don't worry, you definitely won't have leftovers... you'll just wish you did ;) Enjoy!