Inauguration Dinner

Today Jesse and I huddled in the bedroom next to our little flat screen tv (it's the only place in the apartment that gets digital reception) to watch the inauguration. Luckily, our local PBS station was broadcasting it live and we watched with jaws hanging over the crowd gathered on the Mall. It was spectacular -- and the first inauguration that I have actually watched in its entirety. All I have to say is that the Obamas must be exhausted. What a day!

Anyway, since we're all the way across the country and can't experience the inauguration fever, I decided to make a celebration dinner for this evening. I have been dying to try a recipe that I found shortly following our trip to Charleston this past Christmas. The Chicken Purloo that I made tonight is adapted from one of the delicious dishes at the Hominy Grill and turned out even better than I expected.

Despite its humble appearance, it certainly isn't the quickest dish to make. I started at 3:30 this afternoon and we ate around 7:15 -- that included the time it took for me to cut up a whole chicken and all of the ingredients involved. I multi-tasked and even made a chicken stock with the leftover bones. Purloo is essentially a rice dish with a bunch of ingredients thrown in and baked. We had so many different types -- a delicate shrimp purloo that blew my mind, a sausage and chicken purloo that was loaded with flavor, and a chicken, sausage, seafood mix. This one in particular has chicken baked on top with layers of bell pepper, onion, eggplant, okra, and tomatoes. YUM!

This purloo is a lot different than rice dishes that I'm used to making, like jambalaya. Instead of just stirring everything around and dumping it into a dish, you cook and season each individual group of ingredients and carefully layer them before baking. The bottom layer is a combination of onion, bell pepper, garlic, eggplant, and spices. The second layer is uncooked, toasted rice. And this layer was the best of all, diced ham, okra, and tomatoes that are placed on top of the rice. I love those little green pinwheels and was really excited to find a recipe that featured okra so prominently. On top of everything, you place browned chicken, pour chicken stock on top and cook it in the oven for an hour.

I was pretty nervous about the rice. It's not hard to totally ruin a dish by overcooking the rice, which turns into a disgusting mush. However, there was just the right amount of moisture and the rice grains are tender and very much separate! So exciting. So tasty! I had every intention of making a white cake recipe from Martha Washington's kitchen that was featured in the Washington Post last week. However, given that dinner took over 3 hours, I think I'll save the cake for another day.

Even though our dish was neither patriotic, nor presidential, it hit the spot and felt special enough for this incredible day.