Am I the Only One....

[herlander_refugee]

.....who remembers the dish "Dirty Rice" as being "dirtied" not by hamburger or sausage, or beef broth, or Vegemite, or caramel coloring...but by something cheap and nutritious like chicken livers?

This is one of my favorite comfort foods. I love it for dinner. I love it more as leftovers since it is one of the few foods on the planet that I am HAPPY to eat for breakfast with an egg fried and tossed atop a steaming bowl of it.

Fast food "Cajun" Popeye's Chicken has this as a side and it is nothing like the real thing. It has rice in common and that is all.

So am I the only one that recalls chicken livers as the integral 'dirtier'?

Comments

[libitina]

Now that you mention it, I do remember.

Huh - I've been looking for a recipe to use up quite a bit of beef liver, so I've been hunting for something that would freeze and reheat well. You might have found my answer!

[hugh_mannity]

Yep.

[herlander_refugee]

It definitely freezes and reheats like a dream! I make mine classically simple---I saute minced onion, celery and bell pepper, then I brown the chicken livers (chopped small) and sometimes some home made chorizo with quantities of thyme, parsley and cayenne pepper. Then I add the rice and liquid and steam-simmer till tender. I serve it with assorted hot sauces for those who really want to steam their sinus cavities.

[phi]

For me growing up, dirty rice was always bell peppers and brown lentils and goya sazon.

[serene]

No, and as far as I'm concerned, if it's ground beef or something, that's not dirty rice; it's some other thing.

[herlander_refugee]

I do insist my dirty rice include chicken livers, like you! I do sometimes placate my sausage loving men with a bit of something else. But livers, first and foremost!

[herlander_refugee]

I guess lentils would provide "dirty" in color. Unfortunately, I really don't care for the flavor of them very much.

[yarnofariadne]

Not just you! My great-aunt in New Orleans always makes it with some sort of liver.

[sporky_rat]

When I was growing up, yeah, it was liver. These days, I'm married to a gentleman who doesn't get liver, so I use beef broth and some ground 'meat' (I don't mention what's in the meat, thank god for a good butcher, that's all I can say) to dirty it up these days.

[sibyllevance]

I think it's one of those cases when one of the ingredients falls out of fashion & is replaced by another ingredient that's either cheaper to find, more accessible, or simply more trendy. Just like kidneys.

It's a shame, 'cause I really enjoyed the one time I had dirty rice. Thanks for the recipe in the comment above, by the way, it sounds very simple :)

[herlander_refugee]

I like simple, and yes, ingredients do come and go in fashion. I also do not make my cheesecake with cream cheese, I use the German "quark" and as with liver in dirty rice, sometimes old fashioned authentic IS best.

[herlander_refugee]

I'm glad my memory is apparently intact! And yes,bless good butchers.

[herlander_refugee]

That makes me smile. My Minotaurish husband was born in New Orleans and yet initially complained endlessly about the liver. He has re-established roots in his taste buds with real Louisiana cooking, lol.

[libitina]

Finally made it today. Because I also ended up with a quarter tray of leftover rice from a party order on Indian food. Thawed the liver, bought a pepper. There it is.

Oh, man, though - after I finish with the second freezer pack of liver, I never want to see beef liver again. There is just so much of it, and it's terribly bloody everywhere when it thaws. Tasty enough, though.

Thank you for the inspiration.