This Saturday evening’s Okra Rice recipe brings you a Gullah Cuisine classic. Gullah Cuisine is characterized by cooking with what’s available, which happens to be how this recipe came about. I literally looked in the fridge and cabinets, found these ingredients, and threw together what I had. In a perfect world, I would prefer to have used Louisiana-style Andouille sausage or just plain smoked sausage, but I did not have these on-hand. So I substituted breakfast sausage.
Enjoy.
- 2 cups frozen cut okra
- 2 cups uncooked white rice
- 5 frozen turkey sausage patties, thawed and diced
- 2 Roma tomatoes, diced
- 1 medium sweet onion, chopped
- 32 ounces chicken broth
- 1 bell pepper, diced
- 1/4 teaspoon each: salt, black pepper, basil, thyme, oregano
- 2 Bay leaves
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- Place frozen okra in microwave-safe container with a lid and microwave until okra is thawed and tender, approximately 2 minutes on high heat. Set aside.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Heat large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Add olive oil and onions and saute onions until soft.
- Add bell peppers and sausage. Saute approximately 1 minute.
- Add okra and tomatoes. Toss vegetables thoroughly.
- Season with herbs and salt and pepper. Stir thoroughly to evenly distribute spices.
- Add uncooked rice and stir into vegetables until rice and vegetables are thoroughly combined and coated with oil.
- Remove from heat and spoon vegetable rice mixture into 9 x 13 baking dish. Slowly add chicken broth to casserole dish until rice/vegetable mixture is completely covered. (May need to add a little water to make sure rice is completely submerged.)
- Add Bay leaves. Cover casserole dish with tin foil and place in pre-heated oven. Bake for 1 hour or until liquid is absorbed and rice is tender. Remove Bay leaves and fluff with a fork.
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About the Author
Raised in eastern North Carolina, The Chef has always most loved southern cuisine. While working for a top resort just after finishing Culinary School at Johnson and Wales University, when they still had a campus located in Charleston, South Carolina, he began learning about Gullah cuisine and enjoys it as well. He's a family man and country boy at heart, loves hunting and is a big fan of the John Boy and Billy Big Show and the Carolina Panthers.
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