Jambalaya, baby!

One of the reasons I wanted to go to New Orleans last year was because of the food. (Another reason is that I just love it there so much!) And I knew that when we were there, we would attend a cooking demonstration at the New Orleans School of Cooking.

Which we did, accompanied by the fabulous Sudee Sweeney Campbell, whom I have known since high school sometime back in the dim dark days of last century. She happens to live near New Orleans, and yes, that too played a role in our decision to visit the Crescent City.

Anywho, our demonstration included gumbo and jambalaya, the two most famous New Orleans dishes, as far as I am concerned. And of course that is why I picked that particular course.



We were so inspired by the cooking, and more importantly, by the way the things tasted, that we have adopted those two dishes and now make them fairly often. In fact we served gumbo at Norbert’s family birthday celebration this year.

Our recipe for gumbo is more or less based on the one we got from the Cooking School, but it tends to be very free form. The jambalaya too to a certain extent. This is the original (and as you can see, it has been used!)



The first thing I did was to boil a pound of chicken tenders in chicken broth, about 15 minutes until they were cooked through. I saved the broth for the jambalaya, and when the chicken was cool, chopped into bite-sized chunks.

Meanwhile Norbert started in on preparing the Trinity. This is the holy combination of chopped onions, chopped celery and chopped bell pepper, which is the basis of most Cajun and Creole food, and could be used in a lot of other dishes too.

In our case it was 2 cups chopped onion, one cup chopped celery, and one cup bell pepper. We couldn’t find any green ones when we went shopping Saturday evening so I ended up using half each of a red, orange and yellow bell pepper.



These get sautéed and look very pretty.



When they got nice and soft, I poured in 2 cups of chicken broth, the chicken and quite a bit of Creole seasoning. Too much, actually, but it was still eatable.



That came to a boil and we let it simmer for 15 minutes or so. Then I dumped in 2 cups of raw rice. Bring to a boil, stir, and remove from the heat. Let it sit 25 minutes or so, stirring frequently. We also had to add another ½ cup or more of chicken broth, but it depends on your rice.

Don’t add too much liquid, though. This is a rice dish – think paella – not a soup. You want soup, you make gumbo!



It was quite good and the leftovers I had for lunch today were quite good too.


Let the good times roll!

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