Use Uncle Ben's or Zaterran's rice. I boil my rice separate. Make your roux as dark as you want. If after you combined everything and it looks a little light add Kitchen Bouquet, but go gently. Bump the color by using different color bell pepper. Add your meat but I always include sausage.:thumb:
Roux? for Jambalaya? I'm not really sure what you are talking about. The caramel color of Jambalaya comes from the pork. The first cooking step in Jambalaya is to brown your pork. You cook the pork until all of the water is cooked out of it and it begins to stick to the bottom of the pot. When you add the water, scrape these bits of pork off of the bottom of the pot. Voila, caramel color done properly. You are probably using too much water in the rice. After I cook the pork and add my water, I let that cook for about 10 - 15 min for my flavors to marry, then I turn the fire off to let the oil rise to the top. I skim about 70-80 % of the oil off of the top. You leave about 25% to help the rice in not being sticky. Additionally, I stir my rice til almost all of the water is absorbed. I then put the lid on and cook it on very low for 20-25 min. At this point I take the lid off and run my spoon down the side of the pot in 2 or 3 places to let any excess liquid make it's way to the bottom. Use the bottom of your spoon to smooth the rice back out. Top back on for about 5 more min and you should be done. If you need a step by step recipe of a standard Jambalaya, PM me w/ how many you want to cook for and I will forward it to you.
You're right Kyle about where the color comes from. I also use bases (chicken and beef) sometimes to augment the flavor of the stock...and this modifies the color too. Sometimes I also use tomatoes and tomato sauce to make an even different taste and color.
Okay, so I've been playing around with a Jambalaya twice and my wife has now volunteered me to cook for a group of ten at a dinner to reveal the sex of my sister in laws baby (fun stuff). So I'm obviously a little nervous, still in the experimental stage. Here's my process right now. Pork butt or tasso (been using tasso lately) brown for about a half hour, then I throw in sausage and chicken and brown it, then I throw in onions and bell pepper and celery until everything is nice and wilted. Then add chicken broth and rice with hot sauce and some other seasonings. lightly simmer for 20 minutes until it's done. Here are my questions. My chicken gets way over done during this process of browning and then wiilting the vegetables and cooking the rice. I think I need the juices from browning so should I remove the chicken after I brown it and throw it in later? Or maybe don't brown it and drop in in raw with the veggies? Also, how do you guys like to season it? I use Louisiana hot sauce but beyond that, I don't use anything. I've always done this in a cast iron pot but may move to a la creuset pot to get more room. Will this affect my browning and therefor coloring? Any other suggestions are appreciated.
You should not have to brown tasso for 1/2 hour. It is already cooked! If you are using pork butt (I recommend this), you brown it until the water is cooked out of it and it starts sticking to the bottom. Simply adjust when you put your chicken in to prevent overcooking it. You just need to brown it, not cook it. It will finish cooking as the rice cooks. If you have trouble timing this, just remove the meat while you wilt your veggies, no big deal. Jambalaya should only be cooked in cast iron!
Yeah, the tasso was an ad lib last time but it worked well. I didn't need to cook for half an hour but I really wanted to get a decent color. I'll keep it in the cast iron, I can still make enough. I figured the chicken was just a timing thing. Thanks.
you know whats funny about this, people are asking me why do we make this for thanksgiving. I didnt have an answer, but its been a tradition in my family that its made for thanksgiving and gumbo the day after thanksgiving.
