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Jambalaya I bet someone has written a book on the history of jambalaya and described the endless variations, suffice to say that jambalaya is a classic of Creole cookery. I'll live dangerously and say that jambalaya is not a recipe but a style of cooking. Its a way of combining vegetables and cooked meat or seafood with rice. To give an individual recipe a distinctive flavour, there is often some form of spicing based on garlic, cayenne pepper or Tobasco. These country dishes of the American Southwest benefit from the cheap and abundant seafood of the Gulf of Mexico, this version uses gammon or bacon stakes - be creative and use anything which will cook though in the same time that the rice needs, shrimps, chicken, sausages etc..... |
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Ingredients Serves 4 - 6. 1lb of gammon steaks, a large onion, a green pepper a stick of celery and a tin of tomatoes (450 gm size). 12 ounces of American long grain rice (not easy cook or patna). A teaspoon of oregano, one of thyme, a couple of bay leaves, a few cloves of garlic and a quarter teaspoon of cayenne pepper. Olive oil for frying. Method The ideal cooking dish is an enameled iron dish with a capacity of around 8 pints which can both sit on the stove and later be transferred to the oven. If you don't have one use what you've got creatively, jambalaya is not a sales opportunity for cook shops. Put a couple of tablespoons of oil in the pan, whilst this is warming, cut the gammon steaks into small cubes. Saute the gammon for 5 - 10 minutes. While this is going on, chop the vegetables then add them to the gammon. Let the vegetables soften, add the tomatoes, stir in your chosen mix of herbs and spices, finally add the rice and stir the whole lot together. Cover and cook for 20 - 30 minutes on the stove until the liquid has been absorbed into the rice. Then bake at gas mark 5 for approximately 25 minutes. Comment Increase the quantities and this is good "feed the masses" dish for parties. Page Updated: 22nd December 2000 |