Day Seventy Four: Jersey Jambalaya

We hosted a crawfish boil today for my son's school.  I understand there are people who don't like crawfish, and even others who (gasp!) don't like shellfish at all.  For those weirdos people, I made Martha's Firehouse Jambalaya, but without the shrimp.

Deciding to make one of Martha's jambalaya recipes was not a decision I made lightly.  See, I grew up in Louisiana.  I was weaned on crawfish, jambalaya, and gumbo. My mother used to make baby food with cayenne peppers.  (Just kidding about that last part.)  To use a jambalaya recipe written by a woman from New Jersey is tantamount to being sober on Mardi Gras.  It's just not something you do.  If you did, you would not admit it.

I'm sure my grandmother is rolling over in her grave, but I hope she will forgive me.  


Boil chicken with onions and garlic and you end up with cooked chicken and a tasty broth for the rice:

The "trinity" of Cajun cooking: bell peppers, onions and celery...

All mixed together with rice and andouille sausage (pronounced ann-'do-ee):

This was a pretty decent recipe, but Martha forgets a few things:

First, jambalaya is like the meatloaf of Cajun food.  It's mostly filler.  As in rice.  The original recipe was mostly meat, so I added rice until I ended up with the correct rice-to-meat ratio (as made up by me for purposes of this blog) of 2:1, as in two parts rice for every one part meat.

Second, jambalaya is supposed to be spicy.  This recipe, while flavorful, is not remotely spicy.  Thankfully, people who don't like crawfish apparently don't care for spicy food either, so I was safe.


A note to my ancestors:  please don't hold this against me.  It was just this one time.