Madeline Roseland's Dirty Rice

Kat Wood's Note:

Madeline Roseland is my grandmother from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She made this every year for Thanksgiving, and like most Cajun recipes, the amounts are general, as well as the prep and cooking times. Cook the rice until it's done. If you use the microwave, it will be finished sooner than the rice steamer. Keep adding spices until it tastes good to you. It should be as spicy as you can handle. If you've ever read a Cajun cookbook, you'll know I'm telling the truth when I say they don't usually use cookbooks or measuring spoons. They just know it and hand it down to the next generation by teaching in the kitchen while actually preparing the recipe. The turkey drippings are what makes this rice so good, and for the very best flavor, use the turkey juice from the bottom of the roasting pan when your turkey is almost done. It just isn't the same without it. I know lots of people don't like the liver, but if you do this recipe correctly, the liver taste does not come through as liver, it just adds a distinctive flavor, but is not overwhelmingly liver. Granny also used Bruce's Ma Cayenne pepper, which has a flavor all its own, but I think the company went out of business years ago, because we haven't been able to find it in forever. Other Cajun brand peppers work better than the traditional red peppers.

• Total Time: 1 hrs 40 mins
• Prep Time: 40 mins
• Cook Time: 1 hrs

Ingredients:

Servings: 10

• 2 cups white rice
• 4 cups turkey drippings , juice
• 1 lb ground beef
• ½ lb ground chicken liver
• 1 large onion , chopped
• 1 large bell pepper , chopped
• 3 -4 stalks celery , finely chopped
• 4 fresh garlic cloves , minced
• ½ cup real unsalted butter
• ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper , more to taste
• ½ teaspoon cajun spices , more to taste (I use Tony Chaceries)
• salt
• black pepper

Directions:

1. Cook rice in turkey stock in microwave or rice steamer.
2. If using the steamer, reduce turkey stock to 2 cups.
3. Sauté garlic and vegetables in butter until soft.
4. Add ground meat and seasoning to sautéed vegetables.
5. Brown until done.
6. Do not drain liquid--this is not a low fat recipe!
7. Just continue cooking until the liquid is reduced almost completely (leave it a little juicy) back into the meat and vegetable mixture. You don't want the rice runny, just moist.
8. Stir meat mixture into rice and serve.

Reviews

[Cwolery]

AMAZING! I have not had dirty rice in the longest time and felt the sudden urge to find a recipe; I made this tonight and it I am way more than satisfied. The only thing I did different was I added 1 diced jalapeno (I put jalapenos in everything). She's right, though, when she says this is not a low fat recipe.....that's a TON of butter you're cooking everything in. But my saying is: It might not be good for the gut, but it's great for the soul.

[Ladykat]

Delicious! We loved it. Thanks to you and your grandmother for sharing such a wonderful and easy recipe. I decided not to use the chicken liver but instead increased the amount of ground beef. The flavors were rich with just the right amount of punch from the Tony's and red pepper.

[Terri F.]

Awesome!! This was so good I took leftovers to work for lunch the next day, and I think it might even have been better the next day because the flavors and spices melded so well. I didn't have turkey stock, so I used chicken broth. Instead of grinding the chicken livers, I cooked them in the stock first, then chopped them very fine. Otherwise made the recipe exactly as written. Thanks for a great recipe, I'll be making this one often... mostly so I can take the leftovers to lunch! :o)