The Highly Sophisticated Title: Chicken Bog

 

My early childhood was spent in the Low Country of the great state of South Carolina.  (Great in spite of producing shouting congressmen and brilliant pageant contestants and such as.)

Part of this Low Country upbringing included almost weekly doses of Chicken Bog.  The more fancy name is Perloo (per-low).  Or you can just be descriptive and go with Chicken & Rice.  I’m accepting of them all.  In fact, when the kids ask what’s for dinner we usually go through all of these names, in that order before I get the “Ohhh, yeah.  That.  Yay!”

Now, traditional Chicken Bog is made with sausage, as in the Polish kind.  My mom is a WV girl & hearing the recipe just used regular breakfast sausage and her family is eternally grateful.

So here is my family recipe that is a twist on the original, but in my opinion (usually the correct one) it’s even better.

You will find very little measuring in this recipe.  Isn’t that what family recipes are?

Crumble (can you use that term for meat?) sausage into a pot of water.  Add your chicken and boil until cooked through.  The chicken will float when done.  Even if it’s a little underdone, it will be cooking with the rice for another 20 min later.  I usually add salt, pepper and some sage at this point.  I also use frozen chicken breasts and they work fine.  That’s good because I am allergic to handling raw chicken.  Not really, but it’s nasty, right?

Because of my allergy, I cut the chicken into bite sized chunks after it’s cooked.  Oh, I have also boiled a semi-frozen sausage tube & then cut it once it was cooked.  It makes no difference.

I pour the broth into a measuring bowl so that I can get the liquid/rice ratio correct.  Most of the time I have 6 c broth so I’ll use 3 c rice.

This is what it looks like when you add it all together to cook the rice.  Salt is very important to this recipe.  If you didn’t salt before do it now.  Sometimes, if I don’t have a good color to my broth, I’ll add a few tablespoons of butter to up the flavor.  Stir this together, cover and cook on med heat for about 20 minutes.

Once you have no more liquid in the pan and your rice is done, you my friend have made a South Carolina Classic.  If your rice still has a bite, just add a little water and cook a few more minutes.

This was one of my favorites growing up and I’m happy my kids like it as much as I do. 

Be sure to go check out the plethora of recipes in the Grocery Cart.

Welcome to the Low Country. 

Now if I could only get Country Cousin’s BBQ, my life could be complete.