Microwave Sausage and Mushroom Pilaf
A truly good cook should be able to make a delicious dish even with the most rudimentary cooking tools. Think a tin can in a campfire. That kind of rudimentary. By those standards, cooking with a microwave should be considered hi-tech and ultra convenient.If you're worried that a microwave-cooked dish will always have that boiled mouthfeel, know that you can brown meat before adding liquids for better texture. And you can do the browning directly in the microwave. That was what I did when I cooked this sausage and mushroom pilaf.
Ingredients
- 1 to 2 smoky garlicky sausages (about 100 grams)
- ½ cup cubed carrot
- ½ cup green peas
- 4 to 6 button mushrooms sliced
- ¾ cup long-grain rice I used jasmine
- 1 ½ to 1 ¾ cups bone broth
- salt to taste
- pepper to taste
Instructions
- Prepare all the ingredients first. Cut and measure the vegetables; chop the sausage.
- Heat a microwave browning skillet on HIGH, uncovered, for one minute (see notes after the recipe). Put in the sausage meat and cook on HIGH, uncovered, for one minute.
- Add the mushrooms and carrot. Cook on HIGH for another 30 seconds. Set aside.
- Measure the broth into a microwave-safe bowl. It should be newly boiled. Alternatively, boil in the microwave for about two minutes on HIGH.
- Pour the rice into the hot broth.
- Add the peas. Season with salt and pepper. Stir. Cook on HIGH for ten minutes. Uncovered.
- The rice would be almost cooked at this point and there should still be a little broth that has not been absorbed.
- Add the sausage meat mixture to the rice. Stir. If the mixture appears too dry, add a few tablespoonfuls of hot broth.
- Return to the microwave and cook, covered this time, for five minutes on MEDIUM. Leave in the microwave without removing the cover for another five minutes.
- Fluff up the rice with a spoon and serve your microwave sausage and mushroom pilaf.
Notes
Some websites say that you can brown meat in just about any dish that can go into the microwave. I have no idea if that is true. At home, we only use microwave browning skillet to do that job.
The browning skillet has a special coating underneath that safely allows it to be preheated, even when completely empty, in the microwave. Preheating allows the cookware to store heat so that when you add the meat, the surface is already hot and browning immediately occurs.
As with browning meat on the stovetop, there will be sizzling and the fat in the meat will spatter. To avoid getting grease all over the interior of the microwave, cover the meat with kitchen paper. The kitchen paper will absorb grease while, at the same time, because it is thin and porous, allow steam to escape. Steam is unwanted when browning meat.
If you don’t have a microwave browning skillet, I recommend that you brown the sausage meat on the stovetop in a regular skillet, and then proceed to cook the dish in the microwave.
The browning skillet has a special coating underneath that safely allows it to be preheated, even when completely empty, in the microwave. Preheating allows the cookware to store heat so that when you add the meat, the surface is already hot and browning immediately occurs.
As with browning meat on the stovetop, there will be sizzling and the fat in the meat will spatter. To avoid getting grease all over the interior of the microwave, cover the meat with kitchen paper. The kitchen paper will absorb grease while, at the same time, because it is thin and porous, allow steam to escape. Steam is unwanted when browning meat.
If you don’t have a microwave browning skillet, I recommend that you brown the sausage meat on the stovetop in a regular skillet, and then proceed to cook the dish in the microwave.
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