Mardi Gras Never Ends

My girls and I used to enjoy watching the old eighties film, The Lost Boys. I always remember the line from Kiefer Sutherland as the head vampire, “What, you don’t like rice? Tell me Michael, how could a billion Chinese people be wrong?”

I like that because that’s how I feel about rice-it never gets boring. I like fried rice, steamed rice, Spanish rice, broccoli and cheese rice, and the list goes on. 

I first met dirty rice at Popeye’s when I was a teenager. I worked at the chicken place for about two weeks. It wasn’t a dish that was hard to like. Meat and rice with great seasoning. A few years ago I decided it needed to be brought into the rotation as an entree.

I searched through recipes and tried many. None offered exactly what I was looking for, so I started experimenting and have recently achieved what I had been looking for.

I originally used hamburger meat but that was too bland and it took too much to season, so I switched to pork sausage-spicy. For the rice I’ve both cooked it in the pan with the rest of the ingredients and cooked it in a rice cooker. The verdict for me is the rice cooker, but do as you see fit.

For about 6 servings you need 1 pound of spicy sausage, 2 cups of uncooked rice, 4 sticks of celery, half of a yellow onion, 1 teaspoon minced garlic, and Cajun seasoning.

Cook the sausage in a large pan on medium heat. 

While that is cooking, roughly cut up the celery and onion and put in a food processor along with the garlic. 

If I have bell pepper I add some of that. If I’m making this dish just for me I throw in some jalapenos. Blend these together until you have a green puree. 

I have tried finely dicing the vegetables and that will work, too; I just prefer it blended. It seems to give the dish a better over-all flavor.

The sausage should still be cooking so now is the time to cook the rice. 

If you don’t have a rice cooker than use the stove top method. The next time you’re on Amazon please buy a rice cooker. You’ll thank me. Remember-a billion people can’t be wrong.

After the sausage has cooked, drain all the grease but don’t run water over it to remove the grease like you would hamburger meat-it’s spicy sausage and you’ll wash away the seasoning.

While the sausage is draining, add about a tablespoon of oil to your pan. On medium heat add the pureed vegetables and saute for about ten minutes.

Add the sausage back to the pan, add the cooked rice and some Cajun seasoning. 

If I’m making this just for me, I know the spicy sausage isn’t spicy enough so I’ll add some crushed red pepper-the kind that comes with a delivered pizza.

Mix this all together and dinner is served. 

I put on a pot of beans the morning I’m going to make dirty rice. Rice and beans go together  like vampires and blood. 

Sometimes I also like to add Kielbasa sausage to this. This could easily be a side dish, but I like it enough for it to stand alone. Add what you think is missing or omit what you don’t like. I have one caution: omitting the onion and celery, whether finely chopped or pureed, will be a downfall. My husband loathes onion and celery and will not eat anything with those vegetables in it. When pureed, you don’t have the crunch or the possibility of under-cooked vegetables, plus the flavor is dispersed better throughout the dish. He knows this is part of the recipe but it becomes infused with the rice and sausage instead of being chunks along side of the rice and sausage. I hope that helps.

Let me know what you think or how you changed it to make it better.

Happy Cooking!

Dirty Rice

1 pound of spicy sausage

2 cups of uncooked rice

4 sticks of celery

half of a yellow onion

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 tablespoon oil 

Cajun seasoning

Cook the sausage in a large pan; drain grease in a colander. 

Cook rice. In a food processor on high puree celery, onion and garlic.

Add oil to pan on medium heat. Saute pureed vegetables for about 10 minutes. Add the drained sausage, cooked rice, and plenty of Cajun seasonings. Serves 6