Chicken Long Rice

This past weekend I threw my first luau with "Wife" (of Adventures in Newlywedland fame). We are both Leos and thought that this would be a fine time to celebrate our birthdays (which are so close together) with a massive pull-out-all -stops party. As often happens with these gigs, we ended up with a lot of leftovers which have started making the trip into work. Co-workers have asked questions (after hearing reports) and upon seeing this recipe in its Tupperware state have asked that I post it.

Original from here.

Ingredients

2 lbs. chicken, skin and bones removed, cubed

4 cups chicken broth

2 inch finger of fresh ginger, crushed

1 medium onion, minced

2 cups celery, sliced thin

2 carrots, julienned

20 shittake mushrooms

4 oz. long rice

6 green onions, cut 1 inch in length

Directions
1. Soak long rice in warm water for one hour.
2. Soak mushrooms in warm water for 20 minutes, drain, then remove stems and slice caps.
3. Pour chicken broth into large pot, add chicken and ginger and simmer for five minutes.
4. Add onion, celery, carrots, mushrooms and simmer for another 4 to 5 minutes.
Drain long rice and cut into 3-inch lengths.
5. Add green onions and long rice to pot and cook five minutes or until long rice becomes translucent.

A few words, my friends.
1. Do not arbitrarily double this recipe without checking to see if you have pots that can accommodate the extra food. Sasha and I thought we should make extra and found that we'd prepared more food than could be cooked in one pot (everything except the rice and green onions fit into my 6 qt. crock pot). We ended up dividing the noodles into two 4 qt. sauce pots and dumping half of the crock pot's contents into them.
2. The recipe does not tell you to cook the chicken first - but you really should. I don't believe that the simmer time is sufficient to fully cook everything. We grilled the chicken before cubing it and found that this saves a bit of time (but again, we were cooking 4lbs at a go).
3. I went looking for this recipe because my sister and I enjoyed it at a luau in Hawaii. The first time I had it, there was less "stuff" in it. It was just chicken & ginger flavored noodles. To duplicate that recipe, I would remove most of the "stuff" and drain the chicken stock prior to serving the noodles.

If I were to make this again, I still might drain the chicken stock. As served, this was more like a ginger, chicken noodle soup. Though very good and I'm glad to continue eating it - not like the experience that sent me looking for this recipe in the first place. It's a win, but a different kind of win.