Jambalaya ...

[RED BEAR]

What no green peppers no okra no shrimp. You might give these a try next time. I just love Jambalaya and gumbo the rice wrecks my blood sugar but you can't live for ever. For the gumbo its best to use lard for the roux and don't get in a hurry plan on spending a good 1 to 1 1/2 hours min stiring at low heat. Wife refuses to stand and stir that long so i make it when ever i want it.

[gbrown]

Dirty rice is relatively dry, compared to jambalaya or gumbo. Gumbo is a soup, jambalaya is vegetables and meat in a pretty thick sauce and dirty rice is like a rice/meat mixture. All have vegetables and spices, of course. Dirty rice I have had is like a slightly moistened dressing. I make mine with lots of onions, bell peppers, and celery.(The Cajun trinity) You can use ground pork/chicken, ground pork, andouille sausage, or any type of sausage that you like. Spices and vegetables to your liking and a little dark roux.(That's what makes it look dirty, plus adds a lot of flavor) It will come out fairly dry, if you want it more moist, add some chicken broth, can or some you saved boiling the chicken.

[one-eyed fat man]

... Caliafornia says it is a carcinogen...

The only substances that California does not list as carcinogens are those which the minutest possible dose is immediately fatal.

[gbrown]

Not to cause any thread drift, hopefully, but FWIW, I seemed to remember my grandparents talking about sassafras tea and root beer. Did a little net surfing and saw a lot of articles on it. This is an interesting one I found. Some of the more adventurous here may be interested.

http://vaughnshire.com/agrarian-life...ssafras-roots/

[jsizemore]

When we had a hog killing in the late fall near the coast in Mississippi, the folks would make sassafras tea to purify your blood. There would be large pot brewing on the fire while the proceedings took place.

[owejia]

Sassafras tea was a spring tonic here.

[Stewbaby]

Had a hankering for jambalaya so I tried it this time using the crockpot to see if I could cook it good enough that way…test run to see if if be able to cook it at the office (no stove, prepping all the ingredients at home first).

Turned out great and only took a couple of hours (let it heat up with beer/broth, added meat and holy trinity, then an hour for the rice once added).

[gwpercle]

Way to improvise ... I didn't think jambalaya could be cooked in a slow cooker but you proved that Wrong ! No stove didn't stop you from turning out a first rate Jambalaya .
Thanks for the idea ... some times using the slow cooker is convient , put in ingredients , set timer and comeback to a cooked meal ... Awesome Post .
How much liquid , rice and meat did you use ... ?
Brown the meats in a pan or just put them in ?
Give us a few more details on this ... looks like a good thing to know !
Gary

[farmbif]

I just made a big pot full. have not made it in a while and I kept thinking I'm missing something so I looked up recipes online and they all are very much the same and very different than how I learned how to do it back in Monroe.
anyways hers my way of doing it

in the biggest soup pot I have
coated bottom plus a little bit of peanut oil
chopped up 2 good size onions, not the sweet ones, but yellow onions that make you cry real good, chopped up two bell peppers and 4 big stalks of celery.
cooked it down on less than medium heat. this is one time you dont want carmelized onions. just cook this stuff down till its all soft
then I sliced up 2 packages of smoked sausage one was Holmes Smokehouse Andoullie, something new that had at local store and a pkg of carolina pride smoked sausage. lightly browned it all in frying pan. if I had fire going outside I would have grilled em, then sliced them up
any put browned sausage in pot with 2 heaping tablespoons of chopped parsley and 1 heaping tablespoon of thyme
added a whole bulb of garlic, chopped or pressed into pot
3 chicken bullion cubes
1 large can of crushed or diced tomatoes, today it was diced
then used the empty can and dumped two can fulls of water into pot
2 teaspoons of tobasco or Louisiana hot sauce--you can always add more, but can't take it out once its in there
1/2 cup of worchestire sauce, could use up to 2/3 cup

brought this stuff to a boil in the pot let it simmer maybe 5 minutes to blend the flavors, added about another 3/4 cup water

then added about 3 1/2 cups of parboiled rice
and about 1.5 lbs of extra large frozen peeled and divined uncooked shrimp. you want raw shrimp here so the flavors cook into everything else in the pot.

brought it all to boil then turned it down to low simmer, mix real good then covered and let cook for about 20 minutes.
then check pot and mix real good again cook on lowest setting about another 10 minutes or till most all liquid is gone

[JoeJames]

My family got to Arkansas from Tennessee and Georgia in the early to mid 1800's. My mother would dig up Sassafras roots and boil them for Sassafras tea. Supposed to thin the blood in the spring of the year.

[pworley1]

That sure does sound good.

[Riverpigusmc]

my secret for jambalaya is browning the smoked sausage real good in a cast dutch oven in oil...then saute the veggies in that same oil after removing the sausage, scraping up all the goody brown into the veggies

[high standard 40]

my secret for jambalaya is browning the smoked sausage real good in a cast dutch oven in oil...then saute the veggies in that same oil after removing the sausage, scraping up all the goody brown into the veggies

That's the way I do it. My uncle, my dad's brother, won the championship jambalaya cooking contest a few years ago in Gonzales, LA, which is the Jambalaya Capital of the world. I asked him about his techniques and he says that properly caramelizing the onions is crucial to the color and flavor of the finished dish.

[Stewbaby]

Way to improvise ... I didn't think jambalaya could be cooked in a slow cooker but you proved that Wrong ! No stove didn't stop you from turning out a first rate Jambalaya .
Thanks for the idea ... some times using the slow cooker is convient , put in ingredients , set timer and comeback to a cooked meal ... Awesome Post .
How much liquid , rice and meat did you use ... ?
Brown the meats in a pan or just put them in ?
Give us a few more details on this ... looks like a good thing to know !
Gary

Sorry, never saw the question. I did brown the holy trinity, chicken and sausage first. Used four cups of chicken broth and a 12oz beer and 2 cups rice.

[farmbif]

im gonna have to try this with caramelized onions next time, im not so sure about browning the celery and bell pepper.
I know real butter makes fantastic roux , maybe omit the oil and use sausage fat and or butter.

[Stewbaby]

…maybe omit the oil and use sausage fat and or butter.

Bacon grease