Friday Fluff: Cajun for a Crowd

You'll need one of these. Image from Wikimedia commons.

Today is Halloween, and this post has exactly nothing to do with it. Scary! (See what I did there: made a terrible joke, that's what!) Maybe I'll make another post about our first Halloween in the new neighborhood, but that will have to wait until at least tomorrow. So instead I've decided to share a favorite recipe. This makes a lot of food, and it can easily be stretched with more rice or doubled. It's great for a pot luck, having friends over, or getting an early start to training your tummy for Thanksgiving and the unreasonable number of slices of pie you are planning to eat!

I still haven't told you what this is! It's my interpretation of jambalya. I was born in Louisiana, and my parents tell me that in the hospital they put cayenne pepper on the paccies. I doubt that sincerely. I don't even particularly like spicy foods now as an adult. So this recipe is just a little spicy, perfect for serving to a crowd; those who like it hot should add lots of good Louisiana cayenne pepper hot sauce (not Tabasco or Texas Pete, for goodness' sake!) to their bowl after serving. This is not really a traditional jambalya, it's more a hybrid between that and dirty rice. So no one tell me I'm doing it wrong, just try it; it's delicious (and hard to mess up) this way.

Jambalya (Serves 4-6)
1lb ground beef (80/20 or 90/10)
1lb boneless skinless chicken (breasts or thighs)
1lb beef smoked sausage or andouille (do NOT use breakfast sausage)
1 lg sweet onion
1 lg green bell pepper
3 ribs celery (optional)
2 cans dark red kidney beans
1.25-2c rice (depending on how much Jambalya you want)
1 (14oz) can low-sodium or 2 cup home-made beef stock
1 bay leaf
cayenne pepper
black pepper
red pepper flakes
garlic powder
salt

Preheat oven to 350 F. Heat up a large oven safe dutch oven over medium heat. Cook the beef seasoned with salt, cayenne, and garlic powder (or uses Tony Chachere's). While that's cooking cut the chicken into bit sized pieces and season. Once the beef is done, move it to a heat safe bowl and cover it to keep it warm. If there is a lot of fat in the pan, drain some of it. Cook the chicken in the beef fat. While the chicken is cooking cut up the sausage into bites. Once chicken is done add it to the beef. If there is excess fat in the pan drain some of it and add the sausage. Brown and render the sausage. Cut up the onion, bell pepper, and celery. Remove the browned sausage to the bowl with the other meats. Do NOT drain the pan, that is delicious sausage flavored fat. Add the veggies. The bottom of the pot should be fairly brown at this point, if the veggies are not releasing enough water to deglaze add a little water to the pan and get some of the faun off the pan and onto the veggies before it burns. Once the veggies are well softened add the two cans of drained beans and heat through. Remove the veggie mix from the pot. Turn up heat to med-high.

Add the rice, stock, and water if needed (cups of liquid = (2*cups of rice) - 0.25 cups). Scrape the pot with a wooden spoon to fully deglaze. Add bay leaf, cayenne pepper, black pepper, red pepper, and garlic powder (I'd guess about 1t of each pepper and 1T of garlic, but do it to taste). Once the pot starts to boil put the lid on and put it in the oven for 30min. (BTW this is the way to cook any large volume of rice). I like to leave the bowl of meat and veg on the stove between the eyes to let the oven keep it warm.

After 30 remove the pot from the oven and fluff the rice. Then mix in all the tasty bits. Serve with hot sauce and sour cream.