Cajun Seafood Jambalaya

YouTube : Jambalaya in a 15 Gallon Cast Iron Cauldron

Summer cooking in the great outdoors is an experience that can't be beat – especially if you have the opportunity to cook in cast iron. There's something about cast iron that appeals to cooking outside. Cast iron is nearly indestructible, which makes it the ideal tool for cooking outdoors; but there's an indescribable feeling and taste you get from cooking over a fire in cast iron that can't be matched in the kitchen. As an example, we present a huge pot of seafood jambalaya, cooked the way it ought to be cooked: in a huge cast iron cauldron, over an open fire. Cooking a pot of jambalaya this way is an experience you'll never forget!

This pot of jambalaya required a total of two and a half hours to prepare: 45 minutes slicing and dicing, an hour of cooking, half an hour to cook the rice, fifteen minutes to steam the seafood.

Pans needed: The biggest cast iron pot you can get! The great Cajun jambalaya pots come in sizes ranging from five, ten and fifteen gallons to mammoth cauldrons even bigger than that. Because of this, we're basing the ingredients here on a ten gallon cast iron pot (40 quarts). If you're using something bigger than this, modify your ingredients accordingly. For a ten quart cast iron pot, use one-third the amount of ingredients seen here. For a twenty gallon pot, double the amount!

• 3 onions, large, chopped
• 3 green peppers, chopped
• 3 stalk celery, chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 cup (8 ounces) pork fat or bacon grease
• 1 pound diced pork or bacon
  • Other meats – if you're using additional meat in your jambalaya, such as chicken, here is where to add it!
• 2 1/2 to 3 pounds fully cooked smoked sausage
• 12 cups water
• 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) dried parsley
• 1/4 cup cajun seasoning, such as Old Bay or Zatarain's
• 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) tablespoons hot pepper sauce or Sriracha sauce
• 3 tablespoons paprika
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 tablespoon pepper
• 6 cups rice
• Seafood – whatever is available. Southern-style pots use lots of shrimp and crawfish, though in this instance we have:
  • 3 pounds of clams, with shells
  • 2 pounds crawfish

This jambalaya was cooked in simple steps:

• Heat up the pot until it smokes.
• Add pork fat and stir it as it melts.
• Thoroughly cook a pound of diced pork loin, stirring constantly with your jambalaya paddle or spatula. As the pork cooks, it will be rubbery and bouncy at first. As it cooks more thoroughly, the pork becomes more tender, until it reaches the point where you can split apart two or three pieces of pork easily by pressing down with the edge of your spatula (or jambalaya paddle). In a hot cast iron cauldron, it can take about twenty minutes to cook the pork.
• If you are cooking other meat in addition to the pork – such as chicken or uncooked sausage – remove the pork and reserve it. This will keep the pork from overcooking. Add your other meats and stir fry them in the same manner. Remove each batch of cooked meat and reserve it, then fry the next batch and repeat until all of the meat is cooked. Don't cook the seafood at this point; that comes at the end. Pre-cooked sausage such as kielbasa doesn't need to be cooked at this point; add that a little later.
• When all of the meat is ready, return the pork to the cauldron and mix it all together. Add any pre-cooked meats at this time.
• Add diced vegetables, including the cajun holy trinity (celery, onion, bell pepper) and garlic, and mix it all together. Cover the pot for about five minutes to heat and steam the vegetables.
• When the vegetables are caramelized, add water to the pot. Add seasoning and cajun spices to the water: parsley, Old Bay, worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, paprika, salt, pepper. Keep the heat turned up, and cover the pot until the water is boiling.
• When the water is boiling, uncover the pot and add six cups of rice. Stir it all together. Cover the pot, and let it stand untouched for fifteen (15) minutes to cook the rice.
• Stir the pot once after fifteen minutes. Re-cover the pot.
• After another fifteen minutes (thirty minutes total), add three pounds of clams and two pounds of crawfish. Stir it all for the last time.
• Cover the pot, and steam it all for ten minutes. When the clams open up, it's done.
• Uncover and serve.

Jambalaya Calculator

Jambalaya is so popular and so easy to make, folks have it down to a science! Here's a link to a downloadable spreadsheet for estimating the amount of meat, rice, water and spices used to make a proper jambalaya. Here's an important quote from the spreadsheet's creator, Jay Grush, regarding the amount of rice and water used in a big pot: "One thing I did not know, but learned, is that if you are cooking in a pot over a fire, the bigger the pot, the less liquid you need. At 8 or 10 gallons, you start reducing. The surface area doesn't increase, but as the pot gets bigger, less and less moisture is escaping. If you keep using a 2 to 1 ratio, you're going to end up with wet and mushy rice."

( Direct download: media.nola.com/food_impact/other/Jambalaya%20Calculator%20v7.0.xls )

Chicken Jambalaya

I've since used this recipe a number of times to prepare chicken jambalaya in a Bayou Classic 16-quart (4 gallon) cast iron dutch oven. The ingredients used here are:

• 2 onions, large, chopped
• 2 green peppers, chopped
• 3 stalks celery, chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) lard, pork fat or bacon grease
• 1 pound diced pork or bacon
• 5 to 6 pounds chicken pieces
• 3 pounds fully cooked smoked sausage (kielbasa is a popular jambalaya sausage, but you may want to mix this with linguica or andouille!)
• 10 cups water
• 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) dried parsley
• 1/4 cup cajun seasoning, such as Old Bay or Zatarain's
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoons hot pepper sauce or Sriracha sauce
• 2 tablespoons paprika
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 tablespoon pepper
• 5 cups long-grain rice, such as jasmine rice

Jambalaya in the Kitchen

January 26, 2016: I'd committed myself to making jambalaya to bring to work tomorrow. As it turned out, the boss asked me to head out on a road trip for the rest of the week. This definitely meant there would be jambalaya tonight: a clean-out-the-fridge and use what's thawed out jambalaya. Because of this, some of the ingredients in this jambalaya were a little different than the traditional Cajun choices. For starters, we used some of the duck fat left over from Xmas. This was used to cook three different kinds of sausage: sweet Italian, hot Italian, and andouille sausage; along with five chicken drumsticks. This was mixed in with the holy trinity (celery, onion, garlic), green peppers, and Cajun seasoning; plus two cups of rice, and four cups of water. One reason why jambalaya is so popular is because it's so easy to make! That, plus being absolutely delicious. As anyone who makes jambalaya will tell you, it isn't true jambalaya unless you make a ton of it. This was cooked entirely on the stovetop, in a Birmingham Stove and Range "Century" 1960s #10 sized dutch oven. This dish was based upon this recipe, though the seafood was left out and chicken cooked in the beginning, right after the sausage.

The ingredients for this pot of jambalaya used one-third the amount listed above:

• 1 onion, large, chopped
• 1/2 green peppers chopped
• 1 stalk celery, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/4 cup (2 ounces) lard
• 2 1/2 pounds of sausages (in this instance, we used 1/2 pound sweet Italian, 1 pound hot Italian, and 1 pound andouille sausage)
• 2 pounds chicken drumsticks
• 6 ounces diced tomatoes
• 1 tablespoons dried parsley
• 1 tablespoon Old Bay seasoning
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon Sriracha sauce
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon pepper (because I love pepper)
• 2 cups rice
• 4 cups water

YouTube : Jambalaya in a Cast Iron Cauldron

See also: Pastalaya. This is a variation on jambalaya that uses pasta rather than rice! While purist Cajun cooks often sneer at this, pastalaya is very tasty and has become quite popular as well.