Asking a jambalaya cook for tips on making the iconic Cajun dish could probably lead to your life being threatened. But we found a couple of pros willing to part with some secrets.
Charles Gregoire has been cooking jambalaya for 25 years, and he’s not kidding when he says he makes large batches. “I normally cook jambalaya for anywhere from 500 to 1,000 people,” he says. “I never cook small pots of jambalaya because I cannot drink enough beer with them.”
Chef Chris Wadsworth, of Goûter Restaurant in Baton Rouge, considers jambalaya the “pinnacle of one-pot recipes.” Along with corn maque choux, jambalaya was one of the first recipes Wadsworth learned to cook in his restaurant career.
Pick the Right Pot
Properly seasoned cast iron imparts its own flavor to whatever is cooked in it, and the material’s ability to retain heat also helps with the dish. Cast iron pots come in Gregoire-sized gigantic cauldrons all the way down to one- or two-serving mini pots.
“The pot is extremely important to the process of cooking jambalaya to maintain heat over the entire process, and especially when cooking the rice at the end, so it needs to have thick sides,” Gregoire says.
Wadsworth goes with one pot and one pot only — the cast iron Dutch oven. “It’s amazing at maintaining heat throughout.” The Dutch oven is also the perfect size for family cooking, if you don’t have a festival or something going on.
Shop Smart
Then there’s the ingredients. Wadsworth says fresh, local ingredients are the only way to fly. “Once you convert to this lifestyle, nothing else will taste right,” he says. Gregoire seconds that notion, and says to also pay attention to your meats, making sure they are of a good quality.
“Without the proper flavor of your sausage, it does not make a difference what you season with, the taste will come out at the end,” Gregoire says. “A good quality sausage is required for the overall flavor.”
Layer Your Flavors
Gregoire makes a three-meat jambalaya, with pork, chicken and sausage. It’s cooked in stages, adding and removing ingredients and layering the flavors, adding spices and seasoning as the dish comes together. The rice is the last to go in. Once it’s in and stirred to combine, it’s in God’s hands.
“Put lid on and turn fire down low and start praying if necessary,” Gregoire says. He times the rest of the process in beer: In about 10-12 brews, it’s ready to eat. If you’re not cooking for a small city, or if you lose count of the beer, just keep an eye on it until the liquid is absorbed.
Timing is everything, Wadsworth agrees. His Dutch oven-sized batch takes about 25 minutes with the lid on, but as with everything, taste as you cook and season as you go. “Take your time,” he encourages. “Nothing worse than undercooked rice!”
Patrick Yarborough, Manda Fine Meats’ chef, agrees that layering the flavors is key to a tasty jambalaya. “Jambalaya is all about cooking it right,” he says. “The beauty of jambalaya is that it pulls flavors from many ingredients to create the perfect one-pot meal. It’s all about building flavor through each cooking step and getting all the flavor you possibly can out of each ingredient.”
Content provided by our sponsor: Manda Fine Meats
