Let's Twist This!

Gumbo!

Jambalaya!

Ettouffee!

Being a forever student of the culinary world, I moved to New Orleans due to its cuisine. The warm-you-from-the-inside-ness of gumbo, the circus-in-your-mouth-ness of both the flavor and pronunciation of jambalaya, and the subtly complexity of ettouffee.

What I wasn’t expecting is that one of my favorite dishes that I would discover is breakfast rice. Now breakfast rice is not something that is based out of NOLA, it just so happens that I learned about it here. I can’t even tell you if it is popular down here, but when working to prepare food for my work’s morning cafeteria meals, my coworker introduced me to it.

It makes sense really. All the dishes I mentioned contain rice, so there is always extra cooked rice laying around. When researching breakfast rice, I did discover that scrambled eggs mixed with leftover rice is common in Cajun country. Also, this dish is very similar to the popular fried rice of Chinese food restaurants. New Orleans did have a decent migration of Chinese immigrants after the Civil War, and at the turn of the century had one of the largest Chinatowns in the South, so there are influences of Chinese cooking in New Orleans cuisine, like the popular Yakamein.

One of the things I like about breakfast rice is that I can make a decent amount of it and it will not only last a few days, but is a meal all on its own. Now when I make it for my job’s cafeteria, I usually pig out on it and eat it with extra scrambled eggs and top it with country gravy. When I make it at home, I try to make healthier…less butter…less meat…and brown rice.

The meat used in the rice can be easily substituted to best suit one’s preference. At work, I usually use bacon pieces and diced ham. My coworker makes it with bacon and breakfast sausage. For this blog post, I bought a chub of pork sausage, but my only motivation behind that decision was that it was on sale!

I am doing two versions of the breakfast rice here. The second version I am attempting it with cauliflower rice….a new-to-me approach. I was hoping this would be a healthier version; however, I had bought a frozen version of cauliflower rice without looking at the ingredients list or nutrition label, so I was surprised to see a high number of calories per serving……there is added sunflower oil in it…..oh well. At least I can give it a try for the flavor, and if it is decent, I can grate my own cauliflower. I have leftover ham in my refrigerator, so that is my super technical reasoning behind using ham in this version.

There you have it, my ‘culinary expertise’ showing through in my “I am using sausage because it was cheap” and “I am using ham ’cause I got it!” But that is the beauty of dishes like these, a good way to use up items you may already have…like I said, we mainly serve it when there is leftover rice laying about! Other expert advice: if you like it meatier, add more meat…if you like it eggier…add more egg! To make it healthier…scramble the eggs with just cooking spray and reduce some of the butter for the veggie and meat mix.

Ingredients (yields 4-6 servings): 2 cups brown rice uncooked, roughly 6 cups cooked 1 small white onion, diced 1 red bell pepper, diced 1 green bell pepper, diced 1 stick butter 6 eggs 1/4 cup milk (optional) 1/4 cup soy sauce 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce 2 cups chicken stock 1 lb worth of desired breakfast meat–sausage/bacon/ham/turkey sausage 1 bunch green onions Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation: 1. Cook rice as directed on package. 2. In a separate pot, melt down all but two tablespoons of butter and saute the peppers and onion in it until soft. 3. Once soft, add your breakfast meats and cook until heated. 4. Add stock, soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce. Simmer for about 5 mins. 5. In a separate pan, melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and scramble the eggs. Milk is optional in the eggs, I prefer it since that is how I normally make scrambled eggs. Don’t forget to salt and pepper your eggs, as you like it, at this time. 6. In a large bowl, mix the cooked rice, scrambled eggs, and meat and veggie mixture. Stir together until well mixed and fold in the green onions. Add salt and pepper if necessary.

And that is it! Simple but full of flavor!

The cauliflower rice version is similar but 1. You will need to scale back on the portions of some ingredients and 2. The cauliflower won’t need to be precooked like the rice. The cauliflower will also pick up on salt and other flavors more, so if you choose to substitute cauliflower for the rice, reduce the soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce by half. Also, after the wet ingredients come to a simmer, add the cauliflower and cook until tender. Then remove from heat and fold in the prescrambled eggs. Other than that, it is a very similar preparation, and the resulting dish is just as delicious but less calories and less carbs! I like the cauliflower version as a side rather than a whole meal that helps pave the way for more decadent brunch treats with less guilt!