I’ve never lived in New Orleans, and for all I know, despite having ordered it in many restaurants, I may never have tasted the real thing.
Be that as it may, to me, jambalaya means a meal that contains chicken, sausage, and shrimp, along with some veggies and rice. I’ve tried making such a dish from recipes, but find I have better luck starting with a box, and enriching from that base.
Ingredients
- Get a box: I prefer Tony Chachere over Zatarains, but both can work. These will be in the packaged rice aisle of supermarkets.
- Next, get some garlic salt, thyme, and oregano, along with a container of Cajun or creole spice. Sometimes, I add Cuban seasoning, and / or half a teaspoon of crushed garlic
- For sausage, I’ve had good luck with Niman’s Ranch or Adele’s version of an Andouille sausage.
- I get uncooked shrimp, peeled and deveined. Since I have to cut the tails off, I will cut larger shrimps into two or three chunks as well
- For chicken, I like the trimmed breasts from a roasted chicken, partially shredded.
- Plus, a few stalks of celery, one small yellow onion, one green pepper, and one red pepper.
- Plus, for moistness and heat, a small can of diced tomatoes with chilis
- Oil of your choice, I prefer olive oil
Procedure
- Defrost one link of sausage, slice diagonally, and slice these ovals in thirds to get a good size piece.
- Clean out the green pepper and dice it fairly small.
- Saute the sausage and the green pepper on medium to medium high heat. (They need a head start)
- Chop the onion and the celery, and add these to the pan. Add the garlic, add a teaspoon or so each of thyme and oregano, salt liberally, and shake liberally the Cajun spice.
- Cut up the red pepper and open the can of diced tomatoes.
- Once the onion looks done, crank up the heat to high, toss in the tomatoes and red pepper, stir, open the box mix, pour rice and spice into the pan, mix up to coat the rice directly with what you had been sauteeing; next, pour in the indicated amount of water, reduced by any tomato juice / water from the can. Once it is vigorously boiling, cover, and turn down the heat to medium low
- You are mostly done, and can take a shower, or work on other parts of the meal.
- After 15-20 minutes, I add the shredded chicken, after having salt and peppered it, and added more Cajun spice directly on the chicken pieces.
- After another 15 minutes or so, when the moisture is mostly but not all gone from the pan, and you’ve got about ten minutes to go, stud the surface of the mix in the pan with the shrimp pieces (salt and pepper these as well), and cover again. The idea is that the shrimp will be as much steamed as anything, which makes for a more tender and juicy result.
- Turn heat off. Best if you can let it sit for ten minutes or so, it’s too hot to eat at this point, except by taking spoonfuls and letting them air cool. (The first two nights, I generally eat in a bowl with a soup spoon; the third night, I might move to plate and fork, but also add some parmesan or other strong flavored grated cheese.
As suggested, refrigerated left-overs will microwave well.
You can get three hungry man meals from this set up, or 4-5 more modest portions if you are serving other things. The amount of spice and garlic I’ve added to the box makes for a satisfyingly strong flavor, to my taste.