Dirty Rice

Dirty Rice

I was looking online for a rice, sausage, and beans dish and stumbled upon a Dirty Rice recipe by the Neelys on Food Network. It looked easy, quick, and I had all the ingredients. But I’m sure you noticed that I have to add my own touch to recipes. The Neelys’ recipe didn’t have beans and I switched out a few of the ingredients. Instead of the pork sausage they used, I used buffalo hot dogs from Lakevew Buffalo Farm. I tried the hot dogs earlier in the summer and really liked them; they’re more like brats or sausages than hot dogs and a lot healthier too, probably. Here is what I had.

Ingredients:
1 cup uncooked rice
2.5 cups of stock (2 cups for the rice and .5 cups or so for the “sauce”)
1/2 large onion (diced)
2 cloves garlic (large, finely diced)
1 red bell pepper (diced)
2 buffalo hot dogs
1 can of black beans
greens, scallions (optional, for garnish; I used a bunch of cilantro)
Olive oil, salt, pepper, ground chipotle, ground cumin to taste

Steps:
1. Cook the rice according to directions, substituting the chicken stock for water
2. Slice the sausage on the diagonal and brown in a bit of olive oil. Regulate the amount of oil based on how much fat is in the sausage.
3. Once the sausage is browned, add the onion and brown it. Then add garlic.
4. Add the bell pepper. If there is no liquid in the pan, add a little bit of the stock. Cover with a lid and let cook for about 5 minutes or till the pepper is crisp-tender.
5. Add the beans and spices.
6. Add the rice to the sausage mixture.
7. Add greens (optional).

Sausage, beans, bell pepper

Dirty Rice is Done!

Grandpa’s Mashkurda (Машхурда)

After a long but unintentional absence from the blog, I have a recipe to make up for the absence.  I don’t know if this recipe is “authentic Uzbeck”, but this is how my grandpa does it, so that’s how I made it.  Having been making this for ages and ages, he wasn’t really clear on all the quantities and such, so I had to improvise a little and guess at times as well.

Ingredients:
1.5-2 lb of lamb (diced into large-ish pieces since the meat will shrink during cooking)
1 large onion
2 medium carrots (cut thinly into half or quarter moons)
1.5 cups of mung bean
3/4 cup of rice
1-2 TBSP of each: ground cumin, ground corriander, corriander, cumin (yes, I used both ground and whole)
Salt, pepper to taste.
6.5-7 cups of water (depending on how well done you like the beans and rice and how “liquidy” you like the dish)
Olive oil

Lamb pieces cut up

Lamb pieces

Steps:
1. In a dutch oven, brown the meat and cook for about 5 minutes.
2. Add the onions and cook till they’re translucent. Reduce heat to medium or medium-low.
3. Add water, carrots, and mung. When adding the water, I added it about a cup or so at a time. Mainly so I would know how much I’d need since I didn’t get a measurement for it from grandpa. So just keep adding water to keep things pretty moist, so things don’t dry out and stick to the pan. Cook this until the mung starts to “split” or get really soft. For me, it took about 5-6 cups of water.
4. Add rice. You might need to add more water at this point, so the rice can cook.
5. Place a lid and reduce to low. Cook for about 10-20 minutes. Depending on how “wet” or “soft” you want the final dish. I think I cooked it just a few minutes too long when I set it to 20 minutes. But hey, this is my first attempt.

Lamb, Mung, Carrots

Lamb, Mung, Carrots, Rice

Nearly done

Done!

*IMPORTANT NOTES*
1. When I got the meat home, I salted it before sticking into the fridge. I think it makes it much more tender and flavorful when cooking.
2. Season the meat after cutting it up and let it sit for a bit and absorb the cumin and corriander.
3. Season the dish as you go along. I add spices, salt, pepper throughout the cooking process.