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Jim Dixon wrote about food for WW for more than 20 years, but these days most of his time is spent at his olive oil-focused specialty food business Wellspent Market. Jim’s always loved to eat, and he encourages his customers to cook by sending them recipes every week through his newsletter. We’re happy to have him back creating some special dishes just for WW readers.
One of the more obscure dishes in the long list of rice with stuff in it, rice dressing comes from Louisiana. But even there it’s overshadowed by the cooler-named jambalaya and funky-sounding dirty rice. And while ingredients and cooking techniques differentiate jambalaya, dirty rice and more far-flung variations from paella to risotto, when the food hits the table, it’s basically rice with stuff.
Closely related to the aforementioned dirty rice—so close, in fact, that residents of the Gulf Coast still argue about what actually defines the dirty part—rice dressing most often combines the Southern trinity of aromatic vegetables with some kind of ground meat (though not organ meats, because then it might be dirty). Rice dressing also features in Gulf Coast Thanksgivings, but Southerners eat it all year either alongside something meaty or by itself.
Semantics aside, it’s hard to beat a bowl of well-seasoned rice mixed with other tasty stuff. While traditional recipes usually call for white rice to be cooked in the same pot with the vegetables, I prefer to use leftover cooked rice. My everyday rice is Koda Farms brown rice, and it’s much easier to get brown rice right if you cook it separately. I also cook the eggplant and lentils by themselves; it means a little more dish washing, but I think the results are worth it.
In this version, the lentils stand in for the usual ground beef or pork, and while they’re not a traditional component in Louisiana rice cooking, the combination has a long history from Indian kitchari to Egyptian koshary to Arabic mujaddara. But you could still add meat to this recipe.
Recipe
1 small onion (or ½ large onion), chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 jalapeño chile, chopped*
1 Fresno chile, chopped*
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 eggplant, cut into bite-sized cubes
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
½ cup green or brown lentils*
1½ cups broth or water
3 cups cooked rice
Kosher-style sea salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper
Red pepper or cajun/creole seasoning blend
4 green onions, sliced
6-8 sprigs flat leaf parsley (mostly leaves), chopped
*Substitute 1 medium bell pepper, red or green, for the 2 hot chiles. Green and brown lentils are typically nondecorticated, meaning the seed coat has not been removed so they retain their shape after cooking.
Use a large skillet to cook the onion, celery, and chiles in the olive oil with a good pinch of salt, black pepper, red pepper (or seasoning blend) over medium heat until the vegetables are very soft and lightly browned, about 15 minutes. (If you want to include ground meat, add it to the skillet after the vegetables are done and cook for another 10 minutes.)
At the same time, bring the lentils to a boil in the broth or water, reduce heat and simmer until done, about 20 minutes.
Put the eggplant in a skillet or sheet pan with a little olive oil and roast at 350°F until lightly browned, about 25 minutes.
Add the cooked lentils, eggplant, cooked rice, and garlic to the other vegetables in the skillet. Cook for another 15-20 minutes over low heat, longer if you want some crispy rice bits. Remove from the heat, stir in the green onions and parsley, and serve with Crystal hot sauce.