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.