Jambalaya

Jambalaya was always very intimidating to me. My husband Matt had spent quite a bit of time in New Orleans following the loss of Space Shuttle Columbia, working on the return to flight investigation.  During his time there he became well versed in Cajun food.  I think hearing him talk so fondly of the delicious food down there was part of intimidated me.  I figured my jambalaya could never measure up.

I was wrong.




I'm not going to pretend that the road to tasty jambalaya was easy.  It took several batches to get it right where I wanted.  In the first batch I precooked the rice before adding it to the dish.  It was terribly soupy and the rice was mealy.  The second batch was a real winner.  By the third batch I got a little big headed and decided to add in crawfish (crawdads are what I always called them but I suppose crawfish sounds better when it comes to cooking them and not just trying to catch them in the back yard).  I didn't test the crawfish before adding them and ended up with a terribly salty batch of jambalaya.  And all on the night of last year's BCS championship between Alabama and Notre Dame when I had no time to mess with figuring out how to get the saltiness out of the dish.  Matt rescued that batch by coming up with the idea of adding more rice and water (not broth).

I should mention here that seasoning is a personal choice.  We are spicy people.  If you start reading the ingredients and get worried about the amounts of Cajun seasoning or red pepper, just tone it back a bit.  These are the approximate measurements I used for last weekend's batch and half of the guests at Wylie's party thought it was way too hot.  In full disclosure the "it's too hot" crowd was 65 and over.  Just sayin'.

 Ingredients:

1 pound small raw shrimp deveined, detailed, and without shells
16 ounces crawfish tails (frozen)
1 pound andouille sausage, sliced
2 chicken breasts, chunked
16 ounces seafood stock
32 ounces chicken stock
1/2 cup each celery, green pepper, and onion diced
1 can diced tomatoes
Louisiana's Hot Sauce
Cajun Seasoning
2 bay leaves
2 cups White Rice (not instant rice)
3 tablespoons oil

Directions:

1.  Heat the oil on medium high heat in a dutch oven.  Once hot, add the celery, green pepper, and onion as well as the andouille sausage.  Cook until sausage is browned slightly and onion is clear.  Sprinkle about 2 tablespoons of cajun seasoning and stir.

2.  Add in the Louisiana's Hot Sauce (I use about 2 tablespoons) and diced tomatoes and bay leaves.  Pour in all of the stock (seafood and chicken) and let it come to a slight boil.

3.  Pour in white rice (not cooked) and continue cooking for about 15 minutes.  The rice will start to soak up the liquid.  If it is too dry add more chicken stock.  I always buy an extra container of chicken stock just to be safe.

My jambalaya was still pretty soupy at this point so I added more rice to thicken it up.  

4.  Add the chunked chicken to the dish.

5.  Drain crawfish and rinse thoroughly (the crawfish are very salty so be sure to rinse it well.  I forgot one time and the jambalaya was terribly salty)

6.  In a large bowl coat the shrimp and crawfish in cajun seasoning and add it to the dish.

7. Reduce the heat to medium low and let the jambalaya continue to cook for approximately 15 more minutes until the shrimp and chicken are thoroughly cooked.

8.  Adjust your seasoning to taste.  Remove the bay leaves.  Matt always likes things extra spicy so I add additional Cajun seasoning and crushed red pepper.  If the consistency is too soupy, add rice.  If the consistency is too thick, add more chicken stock.  Remember that if you add rice that you need to let it sit for another 15 minutes or so for the rice to cook.

9.  Serve with saltine crackers or toasted french bread.