Italian Sausage Pilau

Easter Eggs



I have a friend, Judi, who owns a rice farm in Texas. She doesn’t look like a rice farmer. She's a tall, slender, elegantly beautiful Southern lady of some 50+ years (I only offer this last detail, because you must appreciate that she is no mere girl of 30 or 40, she has a presence that can only become papable with experience and wisdom). Her sweet Texas drawl can make Yankees fall silent in shame at their donkey-like brayings, her delightfully pointed (and still-gentle) humor ties the tongues of gruff Westerners, and her fellow Southerners are just glad she's one of them.

You know your friends by their absence, they're the ones you miss. ~ Paisano

Although I had known her online for a couple of years, I didn't meet her in person until the first Cooks Bash. There were about 35 of us at a restaurant and I noticed she and my friend Charles (another Southerner) stepping outside. Assuming they were planning to smoke, I joined them. Judi reached in her purse and pulled out a cigarette and as Charles patted his pants looking for his lighter, I smoothly extracted mine and lit her cigarette — possibly the only perfect Cary Grant moment of my life. Judi and I never let Charles live it down. Bless his heart.

These days, I seldom make rice without at least a brief thought for my favorite rice farmer.

I never liked rice as a child, it was usually bland stuff with a slight butter flavor as I recall. But for a time I lived in an off-campus house with a couple of other guys, one of whom was a rice master. Danny taught me that rice is a canvas on which you paint flavor portraits. He taught me that white rice is infinitely adaptable. He converted me to a rice lover — so long as it's not plain and white.

With each cup of rice, I think of my rice master too.

As I made this meal, I thought it would be about the hens. But when I ate it I discovered it was about the rice.

Stuffing it into the hens helped the flavor, but I made another batch that didn't have that benefit and it was as good. Look at the pictures above, they were as good as they look, but the real star was the grains of rice spilling out. It was like discovering a diamond in an Easter egg.

Italian Sausage Pilaf

1 c long grain rice
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 lb Italian sausage
1/4 c diced onion
1 3/4 c chicken broth
1 lg lemon — juiced
3 tbsp capers
white wine
salt to taste

Combine chicken broth, lemon juice, and enough wine to equal 2 cups.
Pour olive oil into a medium sauce pan, skin Italian sausage and break up into small pieces, sauté over medium high heat until sausage begins to brown.

Add onion and continue cooking, stirring as needed, another 3 - 5 minutes until onions are translucent.

Add rice and cook another three minutes, stirring frequently until rice is translucent.

Add capers, broth mixture, capers, and salt to taste and bring to a boil. Stir, then cover with a kitchen towel and the pot's lid to seal. Place over low heat and cook 18 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit 5 minutes. Remove cover and stir with a fork.

The rice will be moist and sticky and irresistibly good.

Technorati: Food | recipe | rice | pilaf | italian sausage