Yes, hello.
Happy Mardi Gras y'all. Back in Louisiana this is a day for food, drink, family, friends and fun. Let's make some jambalaya shall we?
Going from right to left we have the following:
- rice
- couple of diced up onions
- four big chicken breasts diced up
- some chuck roast diced up (if I were near the Gulf Coast this ingredient would be shrimp)
- couple pounds of andouille sausage cut up
- green pepper diced
- red pepper diced
- yellow pepper diced
- five or six stalks of celery diced
- few cloves of garlic minced
- Louisiana hot sauce
- loaf of french bread (not pictured)
Here we go! Seeing that everyone is trying to think heart smart nowadays, only throw about a half stick of butter in that pot, on medium high heat and add the diced up chuck roast. Let it brown a little bit, but not too much.
Add the chicken to the browning chuck and cook them up together. Mmmm, look at those juices! Feel free to add some sea salt, cayenne pepper, cumin, throw a few bay leaves in there. Whatever spices might tickle your taste buds.
Two words: sausage time. Add the sausage in once the first two meats are looking pretty and cooked. Turn up the The Bluerunners coming from the speakers. Stir that pot and get all those meats simmering together.
For some reason (picture purposes I think) I pulled the meat out with a slotted spoon and set it aside in a bowl, then added the Trinity to all the juices in the pot. Trinity you ask? Bell peppers, onions and celery. Pretty much anything I cook as far as sauce, soup, or stew starts with this. C'mon I'm from Louisiana. I threw in a red & yellow pepper for color, you can go just green if you want. I usually don't take anything from the pot ever when cooking jambalaya, but you can do either way. Let that Trinity cook down nice and soft.
One the Trinity is cooked down (add your meat back to the pot if you took it out, but remember you don't have to take it out), the juices (NEVER DRAIN ANYTHING!!!) are all mixed up and your kitchen is smelling good, add three cups of long grain rice. Fold the rice in and mix well. Once rice is mixed in here is where you can get a little creative. You need six cups of liquid, I don't care what you use. I could tell you what I use, but I'd have to....well, you can make up your own mind here. You can go simple as water, whatever stock or broth you would like, but just be careful of the salt factor. Some crazy people in Northern Louisiana, add a little tomato sauce at this point, but notice I called them crazy.
Once you add your six cups of liquid, after stirring in the rice, bring the pot to a rolling boil, but make sure to stir so rice doesn't stick on bottom of the pot. Once it starts to roll, turn heat to low, cover the pot with lid. Stir the pot every eight minutes or so, making sure the rice doesn't stick to the bottom. Simmer it about half an hour or so, then turn off heat and let it sit for ten minutes. While it's resting, split that loaf of french bread down the middle, butter both sides, dash a little garlic salt on it and pop it in the oven for those ten minutes.
Grab a bowl, a piece of that bread, the bottle of hot sauce, your favorite beverage and enjoy.
Laissez les Bon Temps Rouler!
