Thursday, September 29, 2022

Jambalaya

 Cool temps, pleasant weather, and I had to make a run to the grocer's anyway.  So, I decided to make a big jambalaya.  Nothing fancy, just chicken and sausage, with plenty of trinity (onions, peppers, and celery).  The basic recipe is here.

Jambalaya is a one pot meal,  Historically a way to use leftovers, with spices and rice, it has evolved into its own dish. The funny thing about jambalaya and most Cajun cooking, is that we can agree on what it is, but we can't agree on how it is cooked.  Everybody does it differently.  I've seen jambalaya with pork, or seafood, or fowl.  Or all three.  I've seen it brown, or white, or red.  The one common ingredient is rice.  Everything else is based on the cook's individual taste.

I made jambalaya once for some Yankee friends, and because they had sensitive palates  (Don't make it too hot!), the only seasoning I used was onions and a little black pepper. I thought it bland and uninteresting, but they wanted milk with it.  Go figure.

4 comments:

Old NFO said...

LOL, oh yeah, bland to us is HOT to folks that didn't grow up eating Cajun food.

Anonymous said...

Hey now wait a minute, not ALL Yankees... I'm from Buffalo, Franks Red Hot is wing sauce, I put that $hit on everything!

Anonymous said...

Would love to compare actual regular dishes (not spiced to death for some fire eating competition) between cajun, thai, pakistani, indian, texas bbq, schezuan, etc to see who really brings the heat. Real thai and real schezuan probably hottest.

juvat said...

PP,
Thanks for the recipe. Not a Cajun, but thought I'd give it a try. Seemed to lack a bit of savory/spiciness that I like. Any suggested modifications? Solidly good, just not great as is.