Jambalaya

A few weeks ago my youngest daughter came back from the USA after a two and a half month trek around the country. One of her favourite places was New Orleans. She loved the food and in particular she loved Jambalaya. So much so that she brought me a cookbook so that I could re-create some of the food she ate while she was there. 

So, this weekend, I went to get the ingredients to make Chicken Jambalaya, a recipe taken from the "Taste of the South Gourmet Southern Cuisine" cookery book. I altered the quantities because the recipe says it feeds 4-6, however, even with the reduction, there was enough to feed  a small army. 

In addition, although the jambalaya was delicious, it is apparently not quite authentic and so next time I will be giving the recipe a bit of a tweak to see if I can make it more authentic.

Jambalaya piping hot and straight from the oven ....... Delicious 

The resulting dish was really delicious, however, as I said before I will be giving it a bit of a tweak. My daughter says that the jambalaya she had in New Orleans had chopped chicken not large pieces of on-the-bone chicken so I will use chicken breasts, chopped into pieces next time and apparently, it also had prawns or shrimp stirred into the dish as well so next time, I will be adding these too, along with a good pinch of Cajun Spice to add a bit more depth of flavour. 

As I said, I can only imagine how big the portion sizes would be if I had stuck to the recipe quantities because even though I reduced the recipe quantities when I made it, there was still loads. On the plus side, it does taste very scrummy as a cold rice salad so nothing will go to waste. 

Recipe. 

The recipe is in USA measurements and apparently, a cup is about 1/2 pint or 8 fl oz in liquid or 8oz or 225g in solids. There is a good conversion chart HERE if you want to check.

1 Chicken Quartered (I used chicken pieces)

1lb sausage (I used Chorizo to add spice)

2 medium onions finely chopped

5 cups of water

6 shallots chopped

2 1/2 cups of rice

2 cloves of garlic crushed

2 tablespoons of salt (Use however much you think it needs)

1 green pepper chopped

1/2 cup sherry ( I used white wine)

1 bay leaf

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 cup sliced mushrooms (I missed these out as my daughter doesn't like them)

Hot pepper sauce

1 small can of tomatoes (I used a normal 400g sized can)

1/2 cup of Olive Oil

Method

Preheat oven to 400F 200C or Gas 6

On the hob, brown the chicken and sausage in olive oil over a Medium heat.

Remove chicken and sausage ans then saute the onions. mushrooms, green pepper, garlic and shallots in the oil that you browned the chicken and sausage.

Cook until slightly brown. 

Add salt and pepper, bay leaf, tomatoes and a few dashes of hot pepper sauce and cook slowly for 6-7 mins.

Add the chicken and sausage back to the pan. Add the rice. water and sherry, turn the heat to high and bring the mixture to boiling point and then add the mushrooms.  

Cover the saucepan and put in the oven for 45 mins until the liquid has been absorbed by the rice. 

Photographs Courtesy of:

http://www.history.com/images/media/slideshow/louisiana/louisiana-French-Quarter-BourbonSt.jpg
http://www.globusjourneys.com/Common/Images/Destinations/new-orleans.jpg
http://www.ego4u.com/images/countries/usa/new-orleans.jpg
http://www.cheapcarinsurancequotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/new-orleans-bourbon-street-300x223.jpg