Not So Sauerkraut With Chicken... minimalist style

A very quick inventory of the freezer a day ago had left me to believe that we had a lot of chicken thighs... well in reality there were only three. Several Sundays in a row now i try to cook larger batches of food so that we can take lunch to work, so having almost no chicken was in no way going to stop me. Also, I recalled that whenever we eat cabbage with chicken we always eat the cabbage preferentially, so I figured having less chicken to begin with will only make it easier in the long run. Boy was I right! :) However, there was another potential for things going wrong... I only had one jar of Safeway brand Sauerkraut and was a bit hesitant to use it. The label seemed totally legit, listing only cabbage, water and salt as the ingredients, but i've heard from other more experienced users that store bought sauerkraut could be pretty bad. To my surprise, this tasted pretty good. It was shredded, but still had a nice crunchiness to it and was sour enough without being too sour. Also, the juice tasted pretty fresh and there were no weird aromas or aftertastes. SO i figured I would just use it. But wait.. i only had one jar. Long story short, i combined the sauerkraut with fresh cabbage and it turned out quite delicious.





Here are the ingredients:
3 heads of fresh cabbage, sliced in the food processor (4 min total slicing time!!!)
1 onion, sliced
2 carrots, sliced
3 cloves of garlic, smashed
3 pieces of chicken thighs, cubed into ~2cm pieces
1 jar of Safeway brand Sauerkraut
3/4 cup white rice
salt, cumin and black, red, cayenne pepper to taste.

First saute onions + garlic + carrots over medium heat with 3 tsp olive oil. Then add the chicken and spices and cook about 10min:


Once the chicken is cooked, add the fresh cabbage (slightly salted) and cook until it is almost ready (~20min or so).


Once the cabbage is almost ready, add the sauerkraut (with the brine) and then the rice. Stir well and let cook for another 25 min, or until the rice is fully cooked. I recommend stirring every couple of minutes to avoid stuff burning at the bottom of the pot. Once ready, serve and enjoy with thin slices of home made Lukanka and "chorbadzhiiski chushleta"!