Solar KFC Chicken Rice Ham Roll

Solar KFC Chicken Rice Ham Roll

Well, there it was, again, daring me to do something -- a bucket of leftover KFC legs, and we actually had some sun, today! A solar cook has to take advantage of a sunny sky, right? Checked out the refrigerator for whatever survived my being gone for a few weeks and worked from there. And, the garden offered up some beautiful fresh lettuce and spring onions to make it interesting.

I used one of those plastic Sushi Rolling Mats to get the final result, but it does take a little practice for an item this big.

Two-Step Process for Chicken Rice Ham Roll
If you're making rice from scratch, there should be enough moisture to help it hold together during the rolling process, so don't let it dry out. I tried to use the same herbs and spices for both the rice and the chicken mixture with a few minor adjustments or additions.

Rice Mixture - 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil heated over medium heat in saute pan, add 1/2 uncooked rice of your choice and cook until rice is opaque and just starting to turn color. Add 1/4 tsp. each of curry powder, ground fennel, and mace, 1/8 tsp chipotle pepper (optional), peelings from one lemon, and 3/4 cups chicken stock. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer until all liquid is absorbed. Remove lemon strips. Discard.

Chicken Mixture: Remove meat from four chicken legs and discard fried skin and bones and lightly chop. Put meat in processor. Add 1/4 tsp. each of curry powder, ground fennel, and mace, 1/8 tsp chipotle pepper (optional), juice from the lemon. Remove green section from 3 spring onions, slice bulbs and white stems; add to mixture (save green stems). Add 1/2 tsp arrowroot/corn starch, one medium egg, and 1/8 cup bread crumbs. Process until mixture is thoroughly blended into a coarse paste.  Wash, drain, pat dry lettuce leaves; thinly slice green onion tops lengthwise.

Building the Chicken Rice Ham Roll
Pre-heat solar oven. On a flat surface, lay out plastic sushi mat (or, parchment paper to help roll) and arrange thinly sliced honey ham in large rectangle same size as mat, overlapping slices; spread cooked rice over top and mash down to make rice denser; allow to cool. When cool, add lettuce, overlapping leaves.

Add chicken mixture and spread evenly over top of lettuce. Compress mixture by gently pushing down in place. Arrange sliced green onion tops over chicken mixture.

Here's the tricky part, so take your time. If you've compressed everything firmly, it should roll without too much trouble. But, this puppy is a big roll, not one of those cute little sushi rolls. Have lightly sprayed pan ready for transfer of roll and place in center of pan with seam side down. Using a spatula, herd errant rice back into roll from either end.

To wedge roll in pan and help it keep the rolled shape, add vegetables on either side, like this corn and sliced beets. Lightly spray top of vegetables with cooking oil or use pats of butter. Cover with tinfoil and place in solar oven for 55 to 60 minutes. BTUs - 5500; solar oven - FREE

Isn't that pretty! Hard to believe that started in a bucket of KFC!

This was so good, heads didn't come up for air until the last crumb was consumed and the plate was clean enough to put away...which, of course, I didn't do, but I'm just sayin'...