Dirty Rice, GeWilli style, with Collards, Chicken, and Adzuki beans

Not a pre-meditated meal, just what was on hand. Hmm I have left over beans from making a black bean soup with the adzukis, and some chicken i needed to cook up or freeze. And collards were on sale this weekend so I had those.

But no plan to make this until tonight.

Starting with:
one smallish onion
one largeish green pepper
4-5 cloves of garlic
1 quart cooked Adzuki beans
2 chicken breasts (could sub any protein of choice or omit if you want)
1 1/3 cup long grain brown rice
two bunches of collard greens
chili powder
oregano
small can tomato paste
cooking fats (oil + saved bacon fat or other saturated cooking fats)
salt
pepper
stuff to make it taste amazing

Prep:
Start cooking the rice. put 1-2 teaspoons of chili powder in (make the rice dirty)
dice onion
dice pepper
de-rib and cut collards into 2-3cm squares (wash)
cut chicken breast, fist the thin part off then the fat part cut down so it is half the thickness (hard to describe maybe but this makes them all a consistent thickness - important to cook the breast through w/o drying out - if using thighs no need to cut), dry it completely with paper towel, then liberally coat with chili powder.

melt the bacon fat in the pan, add some extra virgin olive oil, once nice and hot stick chicken in there - keep moving it around so it doesn't stick (well seasoned pan is always best - whatever you cook it in make it heavy and make sure it is compatible with your heat source). If the pan is hot enough it should brown and crisp up, then flip, same thing.

When the chicken is finished pull it off and set it aside to cool (never cut into it while hot). Once cool then cut into small bite size cubes.

Into the pan the chicken was just cooking in put the onions and peppers, add a bit of salt, sweat them down. More oil if it looks like it needs it.

Once those are underway cooking, in a big tall sided stock pot put a bit of oil in and dump the washed (but still very wet) collards in, add a splash of vinegar (cider or rice is best) and a bit of soy sauce (salt and umami/aka depth of flavor). Let that cook down until they are completely wilted and soft and borderline becoming crunchy.

While the collards are cooking now you put in the garlic in the peppers and onions. Add more chili powder, dried oregano, cayenne, black pepper, salt (yes more salt - because the beans are just beans, nothing else, as is the rice). Then put the small can of tomato paste in there. Add water until it is still thick but more soup than solid (a little at a time), time for secret flavor touches. 1 teaspoon of mustard powder, 1 teaspoon cocoa powder, couple splashes of liquid smoke (more cayenne).

While the sauce base is simmering and developing flavor put the beans in with the collards and warm them up.

After sauce is close, add the rice in, add more water if needed to make it still more soup than solid. Then add the chicken to the sauce. Mix and taste, let it simmer a touch so the rice and chicken can soak up the flavor.

Finally transfer contents of sauce into the tall stock pot with the beans and collards. Gently toss and mix. Simmer (add water if too thick).  Be gentle mixing so you don't smash all the beans. But make sure it is all well incorporated and let it hang out. Give it 5-30 min to mellow and mature (or longer if you want).

Then serve. Just like that. doesn't need anything else on top.

No no photos of it. Ate it all up. Gone.

belly happy

There a long list of potential subs and variations, and yes in usual GeWilli fashion i can go on at lengths about each one and weight the benefits and reasons and debate why this vs that...

Andouille Sausage instead of or in addition to the chicken would be brilliant. Heck stick some okra in there too.

It is a creol dish at the root, sort out the flavors that make sense.

A good pile of steps i guess, three dirty pots but not that much dicing, and each step is season to taste and adjust. Without the liquid smoke and cocoa powder it was a bit missing something, the bitterness and the smokiness made that final dimension work and enhanced the rest of the flavors without being identifieable or overwhelming.

That's it. Cooking. Simple. Food.

heddwch
G