Last night I had one of my get togethers with Jamie and Elisa. I had decided to make jambalaya, which is not only tasty, but fun to say, Rich even has a song about it. My recipe was mostly based on a
Gumbo recipe from BBC Good Food and my experimentation learned from much research I did on the recipe. Jambalaya for those not in the know is a Louisiana Creole dish which has it's base in the Spanish paella. There are a few types of jambalaya which is why recipes can vary so wildly as you can see
here.
The recipe is pretty meat heavy and can be very spicy, I made mine to a medium level but had Tabasco on the table for those heat seekers. Here is the recipe I
used but I doubled the amounts for 4 and so I would have leftovers. I also took out the onion, added lots more cayenne pepper, paprika and Creole spice. I also chopped Toulouse sausages, for an extra meaty garlic flavour and obviously a couple of mugs of rice. The rice took about 30mins to soak up all the liquid so I left it with the lid on whilst it did with the occasional stirring. Although it is slightly more time consuming than I would prefer a week day meal the taste is worth it. Smoky, spicy very meaty and very comforting. This would make a great easy dinner party piece as it is very easy to double the quantities.
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| Jambalaya mid prep |
The great thing about jambalaya is that you can get a little creative with what you put in, to some extent. A lot of Louisianan recipes include seafood as well. I was really pleased with how mine turned out, even though I have made it once or twice before, it was just the right amount of spice. Everyone had seconds and there was a heap left for me to have for lunch today, delicious.
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| Jambalaya |
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| The Leftovers! |
Hopefully this will have inspired you to try experimenting with your own jambalaya or gumbo style recipes. With fish this will definitely be a lighter and more Summery option. Next review is from Rich on Planet Pizza which should be up tomorrow.
