"Murky" Rice

Back home, one of my favorite foods is dirty rice. But, as my family isn't actually Cajun, I didn't grow up making it or anything. It was a food to be had at other people's homes. For our first thanksgiving with just the two of us, I decided to make each of our favorite dishes; hubby wanted dirty rice. After searching the internet and talking to some family, I found a recipe that worked pretty nicely. This past thanksgiving, the in-laws came to visit and granny took care of the dirty rice. Even though hubby and I both really like this dish, I never really make it.

Today while trying to figure out what I could make for dinner with the pitiful contents of my kitchen, I decided to do a meat-rice dish. I originally planned to season it differently, but decided dirty rice would be quite satisfying tonight. I'm calling it murky rice because I used ground turkey; dirty rice calls for ground beef and sometimes pork.


Murky Rice
1 lb ground turkey
1 onion, moderately chopped. I cut mine into thin slivers
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 can beef broth
1/4 cup water
1/4 - 1/2 cup mushrooms, coarsely chopped
tony chachere's (or other seasoning mix, like season all)
1 cup uncooked rice

In a large skillet, brown the turkey. Make sure the meat is pretty crumbly. It will need to be distributed throughout the dish.
Once the meat is thoroughly browned, add the onions and garlic. Let them cook down a little.
Now you'll want to season your meat. How much you use depends on what you're using and how spicy you want it to be. Taste as you go. It's important to remember that you're adding rice to this dish, so you'll have to offset the blandness of the rice with the seasoning on your meat.
Pour in broth and water. Bring to boil.
Stir in the rice. Cover and lower heat. Simmer for about 20-25 minutes, or until rice is cooked.

* To note, the rice on the very upper edges of my dish just would not cook. I added more water and let it cook longer, but they refused. I just spooned the undercooked rice out before serving it and made sure to serve from the center.

Super tasty with garlic toast.