This one-casserole dish, that is started off on the stove top and finished up in the oven, celebrates a variety of mediterranean flavors such as oregano, lemon, onions, garlic and especially green peppers and the trick is to end up with crispy and juicy chicken thighs and firm (thus not mushy or sticky) flavorful rice pilaf, so follow my tips & tricks !

It's easy to bake chicken thighs and it’s easy to make rice pilaf, but combining both on the same casserole can be tricky.

My tips and tricks are to bake them together while keeping them separate in the same casserole, and I do this by using roasting racks with raised legs in the casserole for the meat (and if I don’t have the right roasting rack size, then I use trivets, which are like metal wire coasters with raised legs) and then the rice and vegetables in broth lay comfortably underneath.

The meat is marinated, then seared in the casserole and then removed and the vegetables as well as the rice are also prepared and fried in the casserole too.

The trick to non-sticky rice is not overcooking it but also rinsing it before cooking it until the water runs clear and then straining it well before adding it to the vegetables and frying it up a little before adding the water or broth in which it will cook in.

The finishing touch is the oven which will cook it all evenly, with a lid at the beginning, without a lid toward the end and a final rapid broil (if you wish and dare) to crisp everything up before serving this comforting dish.

This dish obviously celebrates greener flavors but for a sweeter and redder touch, then use red peppers instead of green ones and paprika instead of lemon, thus giving it a new twist, turning a rather Greek-style dish into a more Spanish one !

This is why I love Europe; always just a step away from our friends’ and neighbors’ customs and variations … :)