Jambalaya
Submitted by Mephysteaux
Intro
A guy I play paintball with first introduced me to Jambalaya, a Cajun/Creole dish that has its roots in French and Spanish cuisine and is particularly popular in New Orleans. It's spicy, it's hearty, it's nutritionally well balanced, so I've been tweaking a recipe I found until I made something that I thought was suitable and cost effective. Total prep time is about 1-1.5 hours. So, enjoy.
Ingredients
Meats
- 2 chicken thighs
- 1/2 pound imitation crab meat (can be substituted for shrimp, or if you don't like seafood, smoked sausage)
Vegetables
- 1/2 a green pepper
- 1 onion
- 2 celery stalks
Spices (If you don't like things too spicy, cut these amounts in half)
- 1 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1 1/2 tsp white pepper
- 2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp thyme
- 1 tsp sage
- 1 tsp garlic salt
Other Ingredients
- 1/4 cup red beans
- Butter
- 1 1/2 cups tomato sauce
- 2 cups long grain rice
- 3 cups chicken broth
- 2 tbs hot sauce
- 6 bay leaves
Time to cook
- Start out by boiling your red beans for about 30 minutes. You can save yourself a bit of time if you do this in a separate pot, or doing this the night before. When they're done, drain them.
- While that's going on, dice up your vegetables and your meats. Keep in mind, the chicken shrinks a lot as it cooks, so cut those pieces larger than you want them. As you're finishing that up, put your pot/pan on the stove on medium heat.
- Once you're done dicing, melt butter in your pan and put your vegetables in. You'll be sauteeing them, so keep them moving so they caramelize instead of burning.
- Once your vegetables start to soften up, add in your meat. Again, stir it fairly frequently.
- As the outside of your chicken starts to get cooked, add the tomato sauce and spices. Cook that for about a minute, then add your rice, cook for another minute.
- Add your remaining ingredients (Beans, broth, hot sauce, bay leaves), stir it all together, and turn the heat down to low.
- Cover the jambalaya, and let it simmer for 30-45 minutes, stirring it every 10-20 minutes.
And you're done
Let it cool a bit, put it in a bowl and eat. This goes well with Abita Turbodog beer. I personally make a batch this size and eat it over the course of about 2 days.
I have a picture of the batch I just made. I'll upload it if my email ever loads.