Jambalaya

So, I’m not from Louisiana.. I must admit that I love their food; if you know.. you know.. if you don’t, I’ll do my best to try to get you to find out lol. Jambalaya is so flavorful and it’ll light your house up with a strong scent of goodness. Most of the time you can find shrimp, chicken and sausage in Jambalaya. If your allergic to shrimp of course you can leave it out and it’ll still taste amazing. I think the hardest part in making the Jambalaya is the rice, it’s too easy to either under-cook it or overcook it and ruin the whole dish smh. But I’ll do my best to make sure I give the best instructions on how to make the rice.

Cooking Process

First you’re going to cook your meat in a pot, starting with your chicken make sure to season it first, you can either cut it into cubes or shred it after it’s done cooking. After your chicken is done take it out and set it to the side, slice your sausage up and fry it. Do not clean out your pot we need those drippings to sauté the veggies with. Now add in your onion, bell pepper, celery, and garlic. You want to sauté these really good making sure that they get soft- do not burn them! I sauté them for about 20 minutes, add in your bullion cubes, tomato paste and Cajun seasoning. Pour in your chicken broth and add your chicken and sausage back into the pot. Bring to a boil. Next add in you’re rice, give everything a good stir. Turn the heat on low, put the lid on the pot and leave it on for on for 25 minutes. The steam is cooking the rice, so if you take the lid off you’ll mess up the rice.  After 25 minutes you can taste it to make sure there’s enough seasoning, you can also add in your shrimp at this time making sure you stir them in so the heat can cook them. Turn the heat off, cover the pot again and let it sit for about 5-10 minutes. 

Ingredients 

1 ½ cups of parboiled rice ( Zatarain's brand if you can find it)

2 pounds of chicken breast or chicken thighs

1 pound of shrimp 

1 pound of smoked sausage 

1 small yellow onion 

1 green bell pepper 

2 stalks of celery

3 beef bouillon cubes 

1 tablespoon of minced garlic

1 tablespoon of tomato paste 

3 cups of chicken broth