Sunday, April 15, 2007

Zesty (but not too hot) Jambalaya

Today, I did a cool jambalaya that I pulled from recipezaar.com. Here it is with my commentary and adaptations


2 tablespoons canola oil
about a tsp of minced garlic
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
2 long stalks of celery, chopped
1 lb smoked sausage, sliced thin
1 (14 1/2 ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 cup chicken broth (I used bullion, and next time, I'm probably going to use 1 1/2 cups, so the rice cooks better)
1 heaping teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/3 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 bay leaf
liberal shaking of a commercially made cajun spice mix
1 cup uncooked rice

First, I heated the dutch oven with some oil in the bottom. It was a 12" shallow oven (my workhorse), and I had about 11 or 12 coals on the bottom. Then I put in the veggies and the garlic. I stirred that around a bit until I saw some brown, especially in the garlic.

Then I put in the sausage, and stirred that in. I cooked it for a while. Next time, I think I'll cook the veggies and the sausage a bit more, until they brown some more.

While this was going on, I was also boiling the water and the bullion cube in my 8" oven over about 8-9 coals. I covered it, but didn't put any coals on top.

Then I added the tomatoes and the spices, along with the chicken broth. I let that simmer for about 20 minutes, uncovered. Next time, I'll probably do all the steps up to this one covered as well. I think I lost a lot of moisture in the cooking, which made the rice not cook as well.

Then I added the rice, covered it up, and let it simmer. I took a lot of the under coals and put them on the top. I probably had 7-8 below, and the same on top. I let it simmer for abou 30-40 minutes, until I felt the rice was done. Actually, the rice pretty much absorbed all the liquid, and still tasted a little undone. That's why I'd like to have more liquid in the mix to begin with, and keep it covered.

I also tried to make some cheddar biscuits, and they turned out OK. I just added some grated cheese and garlic powder to a bisquick mix. I had a hard time baking them. I think I just didn't have it hot enough. Still, when they did bake, the weren't burned or doughy, so I guess it turned out OK.

2 comments:

  1. Looks like a great jambalaya recipe. I agree with you, though. Looking at the ingredients you probably need at least 1/2 more of the stock. What you could try, to take the liquid from the tomatoes into account, is strain the tomatoes and then add enough chicken stock to make 2 cups. That should be about the right amount of liquid for the rice.

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  2. Hi Mark,

    I cooked this yesterday and it was great! I added some shrimp and also used brown rice.

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