Skip the box add chicken and get ready for this perfect homemade version of San Francisco's famous treat.
| Channel | Publish Date | Thumbnail & View Count | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|
 Recipe It | 2016-06-12 05:55:33 |  317 Views |
Recipe for Skillet Chicken with Homemade Rice A Roni and Green Beans
Serious Eating / Yvonne Ruperti
If you’re my age you can probably sing the catchy song “Rice-A-Roni the San Francisco Treat” but I bet you’ve never thought about the history of this tasty ready-to-eat meal that’s been sold in a box since 1958. It all started in the 1940s in San Francisco when an Armenian woman Pailadzo Captanian rented a room to a couple (Lois and Tom DeDomenico) whose husband’s family owned a pasta business called Golden Grain Pasta. Mrs. Captanian taught Lois how to make her Armenian rice pilaf using small pieces of pasta she brought home from the pasta business. One night amid the growing demand for ready-to-eat meals in the 1950s Lois cooked the rice pilaf for her Italian husband. Being the shrewd businessman he was he took the idea for the pilaf back to his company’s test kitchen so it could be developed to be packaged in a box (which ultimately resulted in a mixture of rice macaroni and dried chicken broth). Once they settled on a name that was sort of a combination of “rice” and “macaroni” the rest is history.
Although my mom wasn’t really into prepared foods when we were younger (we never did Shake ‘n Bake or Hamburger Helper) she caved when it came to the original Rice-a-Roni chicken which my sister and I loved. Even though it’s a pre-made mix it’s fun to make. And it still feels like you’re cooking because you get to toast the macaroni in the pan before adding the flavor packet and everything.
