I love Sam the Cooking Guy, but that's a pretty mediocre jambalaya as far as I'm concerned. It has no color, the rice is the wrong type, not enough meat, and the tomatoes are controversial.
Jambalaya
Ingredients
- 1 Tablespoon oil
- 1.5 lbs cutup cooked chicken
- 1 package smoked sausage, diced
- 8 oz diced ham (or tasso, cajun ham, if you can find it)
- 2 Tablespoons butter
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 bell pepper, diced
- 1 can of diced tomatoes, drained (optional)
- 1 tablespoon Cajun seasoning
- 1 teaspoon thyme
- 2 teaspoons paprika
- 3 bay leaves
- 2 cups of rice
- 4 cups of chicken stock
- Salt to taste
Directions
- Set oven to 350 degrees
- In a dutch oven, brown sausage and ham in 1 Tbsp of oil. Add chicken until heated through and set aside in a bowl
- Add butter to pan along with onions and peppers. Use a spatula or wooden spoon to scrape the bottom of the pan while the vegetables cook. Once the onions have turned translucent, add the tomatoes (optional) and spices and saut for another minute.
- Add the chicken stock and bay leaves and bring to a boil
- Add the rice and boil uncovered for 5 minutes, stirring to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom
- Cover and place in oven for 40 minutes
- Remove from oven and let stand covered for 10 minutes.
- Stir and eat
Notes
- You can substitute different meats as desired. It's easiest if they are cooked prior to adding to the pan. If you use shrimp add them to the pot with 5 minutes left in the oven
- You can also add a couple stalks of celery diced up
- To make less jambalaya, you can reduce the meat to two pounds (just use chicken and sausage) and use a 1 1/3 cups of rice (use 2 2/3 cups chicken stock). The cooking times will remain the same.
- If the rice is too dry you can more stock or water to make the jambalaya "soupier"