Jambalaya

So jambalaya isn't technically a soup, but I'm headed to New Orleans this week, already made gumbo months ago, and had some okra that needed cooking. Okra, also not necessarily a jambalaya ingredient, but oh well! I went heavy on the vegetables in this recipe, because I like vegetables. As to be expected, I also omitted any seafood, despite the fact that my neighbors had a crazy crawfish boil the day before I made this and I could have easily stolen some crawfish from their mountain of creepy little leftovers.

For this not-soup you'll need: vegetables-at a minimum, onion, celery and pepper, if you're like me, also throw in some garlic, , zucchini, okra, carrots and tomatoes, chicken (or seafood like shrimp or crawfish if you like), some rice, some broth, fresh parsley and thyme, and hot seasonings of your choosing. 

A short word about the spices, most jambalaya call for cayenne pepper. You can spice this up or spice it down anyway you choose. I started at my wall-o-spices for a while before deciding on cayenne pepper, ancho chili powder and the usual boring salt and pepper.

First, chop your veggies. Into one bowl goes two cloves of garlic, minced,

one medium yellow or white onion, diced,

Two stalks of celery, diced.  Please ignore the sad, pale color of this celery. It had been in the fridge for a while but was still perfectly edible.

About a cup of baby carrots, sliced.  Set this bowl aside.

Into a different, and probably larger bowl goes three plum tomatoes, chopped, seeds included,

One zucchini, cut in half then into rounds.

Be careful not to inadvertently drop some zucchini on the floor. If you do, just call over your trusty puppy vacuum to clean it up for you.

Back to veggies. Dice the peppers. I used one yellow and one red for some extra color. The choice of yellow bowl and yellow pepper was probably ill advised.

Lastly, the okra. Ignore the sticky goo and just slice into rounds, removing the stem and tail. Set this bowl aside.

Now the chicken. I used about 1 1/4 pounds.  Dice it up into bite sized pieces and throw in a bowl.

Season with your favorite hot thing. I used some cayenne pepper, probably about a teaspoon.

Last prep step, the fresh herbs.  I used about a half tablespoon of thyme and about as much parsley.  I just ripped the little thyme leaves off their little thyme stem, no further cutting required. 

For the parsley, I just shredded a bunch of leaves with my hands.

Now, get to cooking. I used my cast iron dutch oven (giggle, giggle). First heat a bit of oil of your choosing over medium-high heat and add the chicken.

Cook until the chicken is almost done, about 8 minutes and add the onion veggie bowl.

Cook until the onions start to get translucent, about 5-8 minutes and add the okra veggie bowl.  Unless you have a ginormous cast iron dutch oven this addition is going to make the pot quite full. Do your best to stir it all up well.

Cook for at least 10 minutes, maybe closer to 15 depending on how long it takes you to stir everything up. Then, add about 2 cups of stock.  Just dump it in willy-nilly. Your average stock container is 4 cups so I think its pretty easy to figure out when you've poured out two of them.

Then add 1 cup of rice.  I used standard long grain white rice, but you could use brown or whatever you have in the pantry, except maybe arborio since we aren't making risotto here. I saw a recipe using farro and thought about using barley, but went with the white rice.

Give this a stir then dump in the fresh herbs

Cover and cook for about 30 minutes. Take the cover off and taste. Now is a good time to add any salt, pepper, or if you're like me some ancho chili powder and a bunch more cayenne. Also, if the rice isn't cooked and there isn't much broth left, dump in some more.  Cover again, cook for another 15 minutes or so until the rice is cooked. Enjoy!