J. Mark’s Jumpin’ Jambalaya
Ingredients
Melt the butter in a big cast iron Dutch oven or 5 gallon pot. The trick to this is to cook over a very high heat, scraping the pan bottom fairly often. Cut up the sausages into bite-sizee chunks and cook in the butter for 3-5 minutes until it just starts to brown. Throw in your diced chicken and cook together with the sausage another 8-10 minutes. Throw in your sliced or pressed cloves of garlic and the seasonings and stir for just a minute. Throw in half of the onions, peppers and celery and cook until the onions become transparent, about 5 minutes. Pour in the tomato sauce and stir for one minute. Turn off the heat and add the rest of the onions, peppers, celery, plus the tomatoes. Stir this in, then add the stock and the rice. If you’re drinking beer while you’re making this this, pour in half the can, but remember to compensate with more rice. If you’ve made it in the cast iron pot just throw it in uncovered in a 400 degree oven for an hour. If you’ve made it is a sauce pan with plastic handles, pour the batch into a Pyrex oven disk and put it uncovered in the 400 degree oven for an hour and fifteen minutes or so. Since you’ve got to cook this at such high heat it’s best to have everything chopped and ready to throw in, so allow for at least half an hour to prepare this dish before cooking. After the jambalaya’s been cooking in the oven twenty minutes or so, it’s time to start the Creole sauce. This you serve over the Jambalaya.
Creole Sauce
Ingredients
Over high heat melt the butter, add the garlic and all of the vegetables. Cook five minutes or so until the onions are transparent, Add the sugar, stock, tomato sauce and hot sauce of your choice (a little at a time). Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for 20 minutes or so. It is best to chop these vegetables finer than you did for the Jambalaya. Don’t try substituting anything for real butter. Serves 4-5
Thom’s notes
· Better to make more of the Creole sauce, especially if you do cook the Jambalaya uncovered (*very* recommended)
· I find myself going a bit heavy on the celery to give more substance to the Jambalaya. Don’t overdo it, though
· Likewise it is fair to go a bit more with the sausage (more so than the chicken to keep the flavor strong)
· If you have never used white pepper, be cautious. It puts fire in the kettle. The flavor comes from the other spices.
· Many Jambalayas have seafood. I am happy for them. Go elsewhere for those recipes.