Jambalaya Chronicles – The Recipe

After many requests to share my recipe, which I am all too happy to share as it was given to me, so I can hardly claim it as my own, here it is. Along with a few tweaks I made from the original and tips I’ve learned along the way. Hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

The basic idea: Equal parts meat (pork or chicken), sausage, rice, and onions, seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, and hot sauce. That’s it. Nothing more. Maybe some bacon fat for browning the onions (optional, but very yummy).

I’m often asked for my secret. If there is any secret, it is simply to brown the onions until they are as dark as possible (chocolate brown). No secret spices, no special andouille brand/recipe, nothing hard to find in your local grocery store.

To feed 10-15 people (adjustments up or down for more or less people are pretty straightforward):

• 4-5 slices bacon
• 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs (or Boston butt, or pork temple meat), cubed
• 2 pounds smoked sausage, sliced (andouille is good, but expensive; I just use standard smoked sausage)
• 2 pounds onions, diced (~3 cups diced)
• 3 cups long grain white rice
• 6 cups water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1/2 tablespoon black pepper
• 2 teaspoons hot sauce (I prefer Crystal)

Cook bacon down to render all the fat from it, remove from the pot (you can make sandwiches, or save it for something else – the bacon doesn’t go back in – just use the fat to brown the onions). Fry the sausage in the bacon fat until it renders some fat and crisps the outside a bit, remove it and set it aside. Add onions to the sausage/bacon fat and cook until they are dark, chocolate brown (could take 30-40

Dark brown onions – “the secret”

minutes; high heat at first to boil the water off the onions, reduce heat as necessary and stir enough to prevent burning). Add chicken or pork and cook until browned (about 30 minutes). Put sausage back in the pot, add salt, garlic, pepper, and hot sauce and continue simmering with the meat (another 30 minutes). Add water and bring to a boil. Add the rice and return to a boil. Let it boil a few minutes until the rice starts to float, reduce heat as low as possible and cover for 20 minutes (you can turn the fire off completely after about 10 minutes). Take the lid off, turn it over* and cover for another 20 minutes. (The heat retained in a cast iron pot will be enough to continue cooking at very low heat.)

*”turn it over” – when you take the lid off the pot, there will be a puddle/pool of water on top of the rice. Use a paddle to lift the rice off the bottom of the pot and let the standing water run to the bottom, and then smooth the top and cover again.

The original recipe given to me did not include bacon. I also have a few other tweaks not listed in the recipe:

• Sprinkle a bit of salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder on the meat the night (or at least a couple of hours) before cooking; go easy on the salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
• At the end it’s ready to eat, but if you can let it sit a bit longer it will continue to soften the rice and ensure you have no crunchy grains. As you increase the quantity, add a little extra water, too, to help eliminate crunchy rice grains – for this recipe, I might add another 1/2 cup of water in addition to what is called for in the recipe.
• When the rice initially starts to boil, you can reduce heat and cover immediately, but letting it boil a bit longer until the rice floats is the secret to getting the rice to “pop” – a feature of Gonzales Jambalaya Festival winning recipes.
• When you cut the meat, cut it a bit larger than bite size pieces. It will cook down enough to be bite size by the time you are done. If you cut the pieces too small, they disintegrate and become unrecognizable (makes great flavor, but very few chunks of meat).
• If you only add half the seasonings you can stop after it simmers a bit and make some fabulous jambalaya po-boys. If you add all the seasonings, you can also stop at this point, freeze what you’ve got for later – just thaw, warm, add water and rice to finish. (Freezing finished jambalaya with rice ain’t too good – it’s hard to reconstitute frozen rice.)

Finally, if you want a larger batch, the recipe is easy to scale upwards, but I’ll also be happy to share exact quantities if needed (if scaling on your own, when you get up to 5 pounds of rice, use one gallon of water/five pounds). Leave a comment and I’ll get in touch.