Garlic Butter Chicken with Courgette & Brown Rice

Ingredients

• 8 chicken thighs, boneless and skinless
• 75 ml chicken stock
• 250 g brown rice
• 2 courgettes, halved lengthways and sliced
• salt and black pepper to taste
• 4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 2 spring onions, sliced
• 40 g butter
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 lemon, zested and juiced
• 15 g flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
• Crusty bread, to serve
• Dressed green salad, to serve

Method

1. Get the brown rice on first — it takes the longest. Cook to pack instructions in well-salted water, drain, and keep warm under a lid while you build the rest.
2. Pat the chicken thighs dry with kitchen paper and season generously with salt and black pepper on both sides. Water means steam, and steam means no browning — dry skin is non-negotiable.
3. Heat the olive oil in a large stainless or cast iron pan over medium-high until it shimmers. Lay the thighs in smooth-side down in two batches — don't crowd the pan, or they'll boil in their own juices instead of browning. Cook 5–6 minutes a side until deeply golden with no pink at the centre, then lift onto a plate to rest.
4. Drop the heat to medium and add the courgettes to the same pan, cut-side down. Cook 5–6 minutes, turning now and then, until tender and catching gold at the edges. The fond from the chicken is doing half the work here.
5. Add the butter and sliced garlic and cook just until fragrant — 30 seconds, no more. Burnt garlic turns the whole sauce bitter, so watch it like a hawk and pull the pan off the heat the moment it's pale gold.
6. Pour in the chicken stock and the lemon juice, scraping up every sticky brown bit from the base of the pan — that's where the flavour lives. Let it bubble for a minute or two until it tightens into a glossy, spoonable sauce. Taste it now: it should be bright, buttery, properly seasoned. Adjust salt and pepper at this stage — at the end, not at the table.
7. Slide the chicken back in along with any resting juices. Scatter over the lemon zest and turn everything through the sauce so each thigh gets a glossy coat.
8. Spoon the brown rice into warm bowls, top with the chicken and courgettes, pour over every last drop of the garlic butter sauce, then scatter the chopped parsley and sliced spring onions over the top. Crusty bread alongside for mopping, dressed green salad to cut the richness.