jambalaya for days
Growing up, I thought it was downright exotic that my mom, every month or so, made jambalaya for dinner. This was in St. Louis, where a bargain-bin Mardi Gras provides the only attempt of New Orleans charm, and a shoddy one at that. By no means does Cajun or Creole cooking have much of a foothold in the Midwest, and back then, I didn’t know anyone else whose family ate jambalaya in a rotation with pork tenderloin and flank steak and chicken marsala.
But we did, and even in my pickiest eating phases, I was always thrilled to walk in the door after school to the smell of chicken, sausage and Creole spices simmering in the kitchen. I loved the taste, and there was something special, even romantic about it.
You see, my dad went to college and medical school at Tulane, and when he returned to St. Louis for his residency, he brought back an appetite for Louisiana cuisine and a snobbishness toward any fish that wasn’t fresh-caught. In the Midwest in the ’80s, I imagine that left him mostly unsatisfied. After a few years back in his hometown, he met my mom, who had no connection whatsoever to New Orleans. He took her to his adopted home, she got falling-over drunk on milk punch at Commander’s Palace, and back in St. Louis, she learned a couple recipes: jambalaya, red beans and rice. She found a place not too far away that sold passable king cakes for a while.
I was raised to revere New Orleans, to understand there was no place like it. My brother moved there for college and refuses to be extracted, and I’ve spent long chunks of time there, including four months before and at the beginning of the pandemic, which solidified my perpetual state of nostalgia for the city’s food, drink, music and attitude.
Two of those things, at least, I can reproduce at home, and this week, I began what may wind up as a weeks-long experiment. After years of eating other people’s jambalaya, I decided to make it for the first time myself, and I started quite literally from scratch. I didn’t have a favorite recipe or even a clear preference between the two jambalaya families, red (Creole, with tomatoes) and brown (Cajun, tomato-free). I decided, then, to start where my mom indulged 40 years ago: at Commander’s Palace.
I found its recipe online (I think?), and since Commander’s has never done anything but dazzle me, I figured I was pretty safe. I did not, however, think too critically about exactly how much jambalaya said recipe would produce, which led to a mid-cooking switch from a Dutch oven to an extremely deep stainless steel pot I usually use for sous vide.
I also made a few adjustments to the recipe, some out of necessity and others due to my own preferences. There’s no crawfish in D.C., so I reluctantly struck that from the ingredient list, and I replaced 14 of the required 56 ounces of stewed tomatoes with a carton of cherry tomatoes that was hanging around in my fridge. Decimated grocery-store shelves in the wake of a snowstorm — another reminder that I am very much not in New Orleans — left me unable to find andouille sausage, so I subbed kielbasa, and I also doubled the recommended amount of paprika and added more chicken broth than the online recipe indicated. That, in a nutshell, is the beauty of jambalaya: You can adjust it based on what you can find in your grocery store or kitchen. You can make do.
Here’s my adaptation of the Commander’s recipe, which I have generously halved for those of you who aren’t trying to subsist off of one batch for weeks at a time. This should still make about eight portions, I think.
a riff on Commander’s Palace jambalaya…
⅛ cup clarified butter
1 onion, coarsely chopped
½ green bell pepper, coarsely chopped
1 rib celery, coarsely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
¾ pounds shrimp, peeled, deveined
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes
2 bay leaves
½ teaspoon thyme
¼ teaspoon paprika
1 28-ounce cans stewed tomatoes
¾ cup chicken stock, plus more if necessary
2 teaspoons Crystal hot sauce
⅛ cup Worcestershire sauce
¼ pound andouille sausage or kielbasa, cut into ¼-inch slices
½ pound smoked ham, cut into small cubes
salt and pepper to taste
1 ½ cups long-grained rice
To clarify the butter, heat a stick slowly in a heavy-bottomed saucepan without disturbing it. As white foam begins to form on top, skim it off using a small strainer or spoon. Then carefully pour off the clear liquid that rests on top of the sediment at the bottom of the pan; this is your clarified butter. Measure ⅛ cup of it and save the rest.
Next, heat the butter in a large Dutch oven, and then add the onion, bell pepper, celery and garlic. Cook for about five minutes, until the onions have started to soften and brown. Add the shrimp, chicken, bay leaves, thyme and paprika. Stir to allow the spices to coat the meat and vegetables and cook until the shrimp becomes pink and the chicken is opaque. (The chicken will continue to cook as the rice steams.)
Add the tomatoes, stock, Worcestershire and Crystal. Mix well. Then add the ham and sausage. Increase the heat a bit, stirring constantly, until the thick mixture begins to bubble. Add the rice, a pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper and cover. Check the rice after 30 minutes; you’ll probably need another 10 minutes and potentially some added moisture to get the rice to the desired level of doneness.
Feast!
One thing I will say about this recipe is I wish it had a bit more going for it in terms of spice. I could’ve used a bit more in that department, maybe some oregano, cayenne or white pepper — or maybe just more Crystal. I’ll play around with that next time.
But first, in a few weeks, once I’ve recovered from eating my way through this gargantuan batch, I’m going to try a brown version. It’s from “The Encyclopedia of Cajun & Creole Cuisine,” which my brother swears by, and unlike the (alleged) Commander’s recipe, it involves bacon fat, which feels… foolproof.
Stay tuned.