BBQ Fried Rice

Yield – about 8 -1 ½ cup servings

Ingredients

10 oz. Spanish Longaniza Sausage Casings removed

1 Small onion diced

1 Small green pepper diced

2-3 Jalapenos sliced (optional)

3 cloves garlic minced

1 cup black beans, drained and rinsed

2 cups shredded chicken 

4 cups cooked white rice

½ cup Old Blind Dog BBQ Honey Whiskey Jalapeno

½ of a bunch cilantro-chopped

Note* If you do not have a flat top grill use a wok or even a large frying pan.  Cast iron works great.  Be sure to scale the recipe back to fit your pan.

Heat flat top grill to a medium/low setting.  Brown the Longaniza.   

Once the fat is rendered from the sausage, throw on the onions, peppers, and the jalapenos.  Sautee the veggies with the sausage for a bit.  

When the onions and peppers are almost done add the garlic. 

When you can smell the garlic cooking (this will happen quick) add the beans and the chicken.  Heat these through.

Make a hole in the mixture on the grill for the rice.  You should see some of the oil from the sausage come out and coat the grill.  If there is not you can add a tablespoon of butter or oil.  

Add the rice and begin to incorporate the rice into the mix.  

Drizzle the Old Blind Dog BBQ over the rice mixture.

Brown the rice on the grill to your liking.  The best method is to flip the rice with a large flat metal spatula.

Add about half of the cilantro.  Use the other half for garnish.

Serve with warm tortillas

This rice dish is great for more than a few reasons.  If you need something to serve a crowd it is easy and pretty quick to put together.  It can accompany a meal or be the star of the show.  If you do not have a crowd and, like Victor and I, often just need something for the two of you then the leftovers freeze well.  I like to put single servings in baggies for a quick and simple lunch.  Victor also loves when this rice is leftover so for breakfast, we can put it back on the grill to crisp it up even more and have it with a couple of fried eggs on top! Yummy!

From a chef’s point of view, I love recipes with interchangeable parts and this recipe has a lot!  Feel free to play with it and make your own version.

Just about any sausage can be used in place of the Longaniza.  A spicy Italian would work great or, maybe andouille if you want to go for something closer to a Jambalaya flavor.  However, if you have never tried Spanish Longaniza (not to be confused with Portuguese Linguica, which would also work well), I highly recommend you expand your sausage horizons and give it a go. Longaniza is similar to chorizo in flavor but is made with minced meat instead of ground pork.  I find it cooks off dryer than chorizo.  If I am cooking it for breakfast I like to leave it in the casing.  It is nice and garlicy, as a sausage should be, with afternotes of anise and a little sweetness.   

The onions and peppers are not really interchangeable, but you can certainly add some things from the garden.  Mushrooms or even fresh tomatoes would be a great choice.  

If you are not a fan of black beans, or just don’t have any around the house, use red beans or pintos.

Just about any protein can replace the chicken.  Pulled pork works great.  Shrimp and scallops can be used.  I have even used cod.  *When using raw seafood, cook it on the flattop off to the side before adding it to the rice.  

Brown rice can be used if you are feeling healthy.  

The cilantro is optional or can be replaced with flat leaf parsley.

Any of the Old Blind Dog BBQ varieties can be used.  I would not recommend using just any store-bought BBQ sauce.  Our sauces are a little different and adapt well to recipe making.  Store bought brands will often have a very high sugar content (or worse, corn syrup).  They will likely just burn to your grill and you will end up with a sticky mess!