I’m sure you’re familiar with mystery meat from high school cafeterias, army mess halls, or some other place where institutional food is served. It is almost always gray and has a strange texture and no recognizable flavor. You eat it because it is what they’ve served and the alternative is to go hungry – but while you eat it you make jokes about groundhogs, possums, and squirrels because you can tell it probably came from some sort of animal, you just don’t know which. Those were good times and we all survived, but it probably never occurred to us to make our very own mystery meat at home. So you always had to go "out" to have mystery meat.

Until now!

I first saw this particular mystery meat on A Taste of History, a PBS show that features on of the best chefs on TV, Walter Staib. He produces colonial-era dishes using only the tools available at the time – mainly a chef’s knife, which he handles like Michelangelo did a paint brush – and cooks over an open hearth. No blenders, food processors, or offstage toadies to produce the mise en place, he does it all in real time on a butcher block table, He sautéed our mystery meat and minced it with the chef’s knife.

I simmered it in chicken stock that had been beefed up a bit with 14 chicken wing tips leftover from a Memorial Day chicken wing pig-out. After they’d chilled out in the fridge, I ground them up using the meat grinder attachment for the KitchenAid. Then it sat in a ZipLock chilling out in the fridge while I decided what to do with it. I contemplated a sausage with grits and cheddar cheese, but after I cooked up the yellow grits they looked so good that I went ahead and ate them. That didn’t sound so good anyway.

Next idea was a mystery meat salad for sandwiches, you know, with pickle relish, some celery, and mayo. I floated that idea to my friend Victoria and, after a long silence on the other end of the phone, it sunk. Finally, in desperation, I prayed to Mr. Google and he suggested dirty rice – though he used the mystery meat whole, not all ground up. No longer willing to invest a lot of time in this project, I decided to get a Zatarain’s dirty rice mix at the store but, as luck would have it, it was just too bloody hot to go out. Back in the larder, way back, I found a package of Goya dried Rice & Red Beans. That’s close enough. Let’s start cooking it…

 I used that "beefed-up" chicken stock instead of water. The tomatoes were left over from some guacamole that turned out pretty draned good and is all gone now. Still, it looks kinda threadbare...

 Ah, that's better, a mirepoix and maybe a couple of cloves of garlic too.

 Saute the carrots, onions, garlic, and celery...

say, I always wondered when I'd get to use that bottle of overpriced Penzey stuff labeled "Cajun Very Hot" that somebody gave me...

Now add the mytsery meat and tomatoes. Next the stock and the equally mysterious contents of that Goya box go in.

 Cover with a bogus tagine thingie, if you have one, or a plain lid if you don't. Simmer for 25 minutes, just like it said on the box.

 Then serve it to yourself, or anyone else willing to try it...

By now, you're probably wondering what the mystery meat is. That's good! It's the whole idea of mystery meat, to keep you guessing for a while. But, unlike Goldie, the surly server in your high school cafeteria, I'm gonna tell you what it is! Here's the answer..

 Yep. That's right! It's chicken gizzards - or more accurately, "Chicken Hearts & Gizzards, Mostly Gizzards" that cost about 2 bucks a pound at your local Piggly Wiggly. Oh sure, you can saute them or deep-fry them in a cayenne coating and chew your way through a down home delight knowing all the time what it is, but mystery meat is a lot more fun! My dirty rice didn't taste too bad, but it wasn't that good either. The coarse grinding eliminated the "chew factor" texture and it's pretty much a place marker in this dish, like, "Hmmm, there's some kind of meat in here, but I don't know for sure what..." - and that's the true spirit of mystery meat!