Dirty Rice with Italian Sausage
Posted in Main Course, Recipes on April 14th, 2009 by JTMy general rule when I go grocery shopping is “only buy ingredients.” What I mean by that is that I don’t buy things that are already dishes and only need to be heated. I don’t buy spaghetti sauce, I keep tomatoes and garlic, etc. on hand. That way if I want spaghetti sauce I can have that, and if I want chili it can also be that. There have been a few exceptions to that rule to satisfy my wife by purchasing things I cannot make better myself. One of those, Stove Top Stuffing, was eliminated last week when I learned the secret of sage, this week I am able to eliminate my final boxed good from my shopping cart by figuring out how to recreate Zatarans Dirty Rice. I don’t know why I didn’t try this earlier because I’ve been mixing my own Cajun spices since I learned how to cook (the first thing I ever cooked was gumbo.) My wife loves Zatarans with Italian sausage mixed in. Here is how to avoid ever having to by Zatarans again.
Dirty Rice with Italian Sausage
1 lb Italian Sausage (hot or mild)
Cajun Spice
2 cups Beef Broth
1 cup Rice
1 pat Butter
1 tblspn minced Garlic
1 tblspn diced Onion
1 tblspn dice Bell Pepper
Cajun Spice
1 tspn thyme
½ tspn oregano
1 tspn pepper
½ – 0 tspn cayenne (depending on your heat preference)
1 tspn paprika
1 tspn garlic powder
1 tspn onion powder
½ tspn celery salt
1. Prepare Italian sausage. What I do is fill my cast iron skillet 1/3 full of water and boil the sausages until the water all evaporated, then I sear them in the fat which has been released from them while boiling. This little trick is how I am able to get the insides and outsides cooked to my desired doneness. I also use this trick to “grill” onions by adding some oil and butter to the water. When the sausages are done, move them to a cutting board, let them rest and slice into bite size pieces.
2. Saute your onion, pepper and garlic (you could add celery too)in the butter until softened.
3. Add your Cajun seasoning and let the flavors bloom a little, once you can smell it go ahead and
4. Add your rice, I always sauté my rice a little
5. Add in your beef broth and cook rice as you normally do
6. When the rice is done and all the liquid absorbed, mix in ½ the sausage with the rice
7. Plate up and add the second ½ the sausage on top
Makes enough for 4.
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sounds yummy…as a variation I might take the casing off the sausage before cooking and mix it all up…it wouldn’t be as pretty but it might taste nice with the little bits of sausage mixed up all throughout the rice.
oddly enough I had sausages and rice for dinner tonight too..but I just cooked the sausage (which were fresh chicken sausages that had some cheese in them)…they let out a lot of liquid and juices so I mixed in pre-cooked steamed rice from last night into the juices…
and the sausages were whole…just as you cooked yours and I didn’t make it look all pretty either!
it was yummy but through no doing of my own purely the sausage juice flavoring everything.
Oh My! This looks delicious a so. You have great stuff.. Love it. I am subscribing to your feeds.Like right now.
This looks tasty. I like Gianna’s idea of taking the casing off before the cooking. Your browning method also looks rather easy. I tend to have a problem browning sausage in the pan as I tend tor burn it.
Now, this raises another question – have you ever made your own sausage?
One thing you will notice is that JT, who posted this dish, is very creative in his cooking. He tends to find ways to use everything and is not afraid to experiment. I just wish I had the ability you and he have.
Who knows, maybe over time…
Yes and no.
Yes – I worked in a 4 aisle grocery store in high school know for it’s meat dept and bakery. I would help make the brats in the meat dept, but we had lots of industial equipment and it wasn’t my recipe, so it isn’t the same as making it at home.
No – I have the Ruhlman book on chrcuterie and have read it several times, but I’m always intimidated to make anything from it. I’ll have to now that I am writing down my experiences.
Lastly, my father-in-law used to have his own Brat cart. He still makes them several times a year. I’ll have to join him one of these times to get some practice filling the casings.
The family has a long history making sausage, and some members still have the equipment to make the sausage, but I have no real beginning point. We’ll have to share stories/ideas as this is also something I want to try.
Looks good to me. Heh, my girlfriend does our grocery shopping and I try to get her to only buy ingredients. But she has a fetish for boxed things. I’m working on it… slowly.
I like JT’s approach. I’ve just really started to get to the whole “shop on the outside of the store” mentality (not down the aisles as that is where the processed food is).
It’s taken me some time but I’m getting there.
WHOLE FOOD…I’ve been doing it for 3 years now. I don’t touch processed stuff at all. And I do all organic too.
The only boxes I buy now are pasta (brown rice) and I do get few canned items as well, but very few.
Once you make the switch and get used to it the processed stuff really loses it’s appeal. Then again, I never ate much of it in any case, so it wasn’t a horribly hard habit to break.
I’ve really started to change the habit and I’m slowly moving toward unprocessed as much as possible. You are right, once you do make the switch the processed loses it’s appeal… processes ends up tasting very unhealthy.
Why do you do the organic? Is it a taste issue or because of the chemicals?
chemicals and nutrition…there is evidence that mass farming methods and high degrees of hybridization has diminished nutritional content of food…so does shipping food long distances…buying local is also something I try to do.
also I eat humanely raised animals and eggs and milk all hormone free…I’m very chemically sensitive and I don’t need additional gunk making me unstable…
some pesticides are actually zenoestrogens and I have too much estrogen in any case so I don’t need artificial chemicals raising it higher…I’ve also cut out plastic bottles as they too mess with estrogen.
I also don’t eat soy because it too is high in phytoestrogens.
I actually have a disease that is caused by too much estrogen and all this stuff effects estrogen…it’s really not good for anyone but for me it’s actually noticeable.
I have actually made a lot of changes to how I “source” my food, for lots of reasons. I’ve mentioned some of it before, but basically I know the people who make/grow most of my food now (stupid Michael Pollan audiobook on a plane ride, before him I was perfectly happy eating soy meal, high fructose corn syrup, red no. 5, and hydrogenated oil for every meal.)
Now my free range organic pork, grass fed and finished beef, and free range chickens come from a farm in Iowa (he also sources fish from small family fisheries in Alaska and Florida).
My fruits and vegetables are delivered to my house every Saturday from 5 different farms.
My raw unpasteurized unhomogenized milk, butter etc. is picked up on Mondays from a Wisconsin farm drop off location in my neighborhood.
My pasta is made by a local lady from semolina from Kansas and my bread is homemade from wheat grown in Central Illinois near where I grew up.
Honey and olives from my sister in law in Califormia.
Except for wine and beer that covers most of my meals. I haven’t been to a grocery store in months and even then its for oil, spices, condiments and the occasional canned or random vegetable.
I write this as I am eating peanut M & Ms… but what’s wrong w/ Red #5?
The chemical aspect is something that I’ve been thinking/reading about over the last several months. That said, I was unaware of the devalued nutritional aspect.
@JT – the CSAs, are they organic?
Yes on the meat, yes on the veggies, I assume on the raw milk.
I saw a number of things on localharvest.org that I think I may do as one offs to start, then take the CSA route.
Just wondering if u have published the “Stovetop” style stuffing recipe.
I’m in Oz where it doesn’t exist. I think i might be ready to try that.
I have been fortunate to have a dirty rice recipe but it calls for the innards of chickens which don’t seem to be available here. Chickens come w/o gizzards!! So i have had no gizzards for years and i love them and i love dirty rice. Occassionally livers are available.
many thanks for this.
I may submit a few recipes soon too.