Dirty Rice

Do you like it dirty? Well, do you? MMmmnnnn, you cheeky monkey!

The CC does! But shhhh, my doctor wouldn’t be so thrilled about knowing that. So, the CC made a version of her favorite dish using ground turkey and turkey sausage to achieve the legendary taste that helped put N’Orleans ( Nawlins) on the map.

For those of you that don’t exactly know what dirty rice is, it is a rice dish made with ground sausage, livers, vegetables, herbs and spices. It is the dark appearance of the rice that gives the dish its name. Now, a note to all of you who find liver offensive: COWARDS! the lot of you. Seriously, you can skip the livers but the liver add a component to the dish that cannot be matched.

(Sigh). So if you must, skip the liver and add extra turkey sausage in its place.

You will need

large iron, aluminum, or enameled skillet

Lit to fit skillet

dry measuring cups

liquid measuring cups

measuring spoons

cutting board

chef’s knife

spoons for stirring

Ingredients:

3/4 c. green peppers, diced

1 1/2 c. yellow onions, diced

1/2 c. celery. diced

1 tbl. garlic

1/2 lb. ground turkey*

1/3 lb. italian-style turkey sausage**, casings removed

1/2 cup chicken livers, rinsed and patted dry

1 tbl. worcestershire

1/2 tsp. poultry seasoning

1 tsp. Italian seasoning

1/4 to 1/2 tsp. cayenne

1 cup uncooked white rice

2 cups chicken stock

salt and black pepper to taste

2 tbl. fresh parsley, chopped

vegetable oil

Place 1/4 cup of vegetable oil in bottom of skillet, and heat over medium flame. Briefly brown livers on all sides, then remove from pan. Let cool, then chop livers coarsely and set aside. Add ground turkey to pan and let brown, remove from pan and set aside. Add an additional 1/4 cup of oil, if needed and brown sausage stirring to break up in pan. Add peppers, onions, celery, and garlic and cook until softened. Add rice and cook an additional 3-4 minutes. Add ground turkey, bay leaf, salt, pepper, poultry seasoning, cayenne, livers and stir until blended. Add stock, turn heat to high and bring to boil. Turn down heat and cover pan. Cook over low heat for 15- 20 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. Remove covered pan from heat and le stand with lid on for five minutes. Fluff rice with fork and stir in chopped fresh parsley.

Serves four to six persons.

*This dish needs a certain amount of fat to round out the flavor, so don’t use ground turkey breast for the turkey, It is too dry for this dish. Try to find regular ground turkey. Also, ground beef or pork can be used as a substitute

**As for the sausage, I used Shady Brook Farms Italian-style Turkey dinner links for the sausage. I used 2 links for this recipe, Add one more if you plan to sub sausage for chicken livers. However, you can use regular pork sausage for this dish, or smoked sausage will do as well.