My grandmother Hessie had one pot that mattered, a black cast-iron Dutch oven big enough to bathe a baby in, and on Sunday it went on the stove before we left for church. Chicken, onion, a little smoked sausage, rice and water, and a lid that stayed on till we got home. She could tell if the rice was done by the sound the lid made when she tapped it with a spoon.
That is chicken bog, and it feeds twelve if nobody takes seconds, which nobody ever did not. Here is how I make it now. Brown two pounds of sausage in your biggest pot. Add a whole chicken cut up, one onion, two ribs of celery, salt, pepper and enough water to cover. Simmer an hour and a half, pull the chicken, take the meat off the bones and put the bones back.
Strain out four cups of that broth and set it aside in a jar. That jar is Monday. Then cook three cups of long-grain rice in the rest of the broth with the chicken meat stirred back in. Keep the lid on. Tap it with a spoon if you want to. Grandmother always said the rice would tell you when it was ready, and she was right more often than the clock.
This is as far as the free sample goes — the rest of Sunday Pot, Monday Soup is waiting for you.
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