How do you know someone is a culinary mad scientist? Simple: while most people just follow recipes and seldom modify them and others usually give recipes a trial run, the mad scientist will immediately start envisioning conceivable modifications and will often tinker with a recipe without even trying it out as it is. Of course, which category you fall under depends a lot on the recipe, personal tastes, knowledge, and how adventurous is your spirit; we all know people (like me) who like spicy foods and napalm almost anything that isn't savory. The adventurous amateur food surgeons, they are the mad scientists of the kitchen. I'm one of them.
Today's Specimen
My first victim is a beans and rice recipe I got from Allrecipes.com, scaled down from eight servings to four:
Ingredients
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 cup uncooked rice
- 1/2 (16 ounce) package turkey kielbasa, cut diagonally into 1/4 inch slices
- 1/2 onion, chopped
- 1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
- 1/2 clove garlic, chopped
- 1 can (15 ounces) canned kidney beans, drained
- 1/2 can (16 ounces) whole peeled tomatoes, chopped
- 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- salt to taste
Directions
- In a saucepan, bring water to a boil. Add rice and stir. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
- In a large skillet over low heat, cook sausage for 5 minutes. Stir in onion, green pepper and garlic; saute until tender. Pour in beans and tomatoes with juice. Season with oregano, salt and pepper. Simmer uncovered for 20 minutes. Serve over rice.
Time to Experiment
Not a bad start, but I could tell right off the bat that it wouldn't be nearly flavorful or spicy enough for me, so this is what I did differently:
- Doubled the rice (white) and water.
- Coarsely minced two cloves of garlic.
- Replaced the bell pepper with three coarsely minced serranos.
- Used a whole small yellow onion.
- Used an entire can of diced, peeled, unseasoned tomatoes.
- Fucked up and ended up with 0.64 lbs. of sausage, spicy Italian pork ones.
- Added a teaspoon of tomato paste to the simmering mixture to thicken the sauce and add flavor.
- Added a half teaspoon of red wine vinegar to accentuate the tomato flavor.
- Tossed in a pinch of cayenne and cumin to add some heat.
- I deviated from the directions in cooking the onion and peppers in with the meat until the meat was uniformely browned and the onions were slightly translucent; then added the garlic, tomatoes, beans, and spices to simmer as directed.
Now that's a considerable improvement, though I can see how some people would consider it too spicy. Here is what I would do differently next time, and also an idea on how to make it vegetarian-friendly:
Next Time in the Lab
- Use brown long-grain rice instead.
- Add another clove of garlic, also coarsely minced.
- Add another serrano, also coarsely minced.
- Possibly empty the can of tomatoes with the juice into a container and add some Tabasco™ or other Louisiana-style hot sauce and let them marinade in that for at least an hour.
- Or, instead of marinating the tomatoes, up the cayenne to an eighth of a teaspoon and toss in a pinch of chili powder.
- Use only the half-pound of sausage recommended, but stick with the spicy Italian.
- I could also see myself adding teaspoon of brown sugar and/or molasses to see how the sauce would be affected.
- If you don't like the heat, I'd stick with the original recipe's bell pepper or substitute a poblano pepper.
- For a vegetarian dish, substitute an additional can of red beans for the sausage, perhaps with half a teaspoon of Better Than Boullion™ vegetable base.
