Fat Tuesday Deliciousness: Shrimp and Sausage Jambalaya

 

As you may remember, this week we're on a quest to make some new Internet friends by recreating meals of some popular bloggers on the web. Today's recipe is a Shrimp and Sausage Jambalaya that we adapted from BrownEyedBaker. We were looking for a jambalaya recipe to make since it's (sort of) Mardi Gras season, and her photos and recipe sounded delicious.

I am pooped from Mardi Gras festivities...wake me when it's time for dinner

Neither of us had had or made jambalaya lately, so we were pretty open to what it would taste like, but we knew we wanted something spicy, flavorful, and full of seafood, so this seemed like the perfect combination. We changed up Michelle's recipe just a touch since there were just the two of us, and removed the red bell pepper and ham, but it still came out spicy and delicious. The best thing about it though is that it definitely passes our test for minimal effort with great reward - it's very easy to make once you get through chopping everything up!

Making the Dish
What You'll Need

3-4 links smoked andouille sausage
1 lb 20-24 ct shrimp, deveined and rinsed

1 medium onion, diced

1 rib celery, diced

1 medium green bell pepper, diced

1 vine ripened tomato, seeded and diced

1 tablespoon butter

4 cups chicken stock

2 cups long-grain brown rice, rinsed

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon fresh thyme, minced
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
3 bay leaves
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2-4 teaspoons hot sauce (optional)
1/2 cup chopped scallions
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
Juice of one lemon

Start off by chopping up everything you'll need. Dice up your onion, celery, green pepper, a vine ripened tomato, and 3 cloves of garlic, as well as your fresh thyme and parsley, and green onions.

Andouille sausage, sliced up. 

We used pre-cooked andouille sausage for this (and recommend it as well, since it makes the whole thing a lot easier to pull together), so slice that up into thin circles as well.

Is that sausage I smell? Hrm... I could be convinced to get up for that. 

Next it's time to start cooking. In a large pot, add in your butter, let it melt down, and then throw in your onion and celery. Once it starts to cook down and soften, add in the garlic to let it open up in flavor, and the tomato as well.

Cooking up some veggies. 

After a few minutes of cooking, before the garlic starts to brown, add in your chopped thyme, oregano, and cayenne pepper (amounts for each can be found at the bottom of the post), and mix it all together. Then throw in your tomato paste and blent together well.

Jambalaya herbs and spices. 

The next step is to add in the chicken stock and bring it to a rolling boil. Once you're there, you can add in your rice, sausage, bay leaves, salt, and pepper.

Adding the rice and sauce into the stock. 

Additionally, if you're looking for extra spicy, add in some hot pepper sauce (Tobasco, or similar).

We used Frank's RedHot, because it's what we had. 

Stir it all together, bring it back to a boil, and once it's boiling, cover and reduce the head to low. Simmer it covered for 20 minutes, until the rice is cooked. Notice that you'll probably have to go a bit longer, maybe as long as 30 minutes, if you're using whole grain rice rather than white rice, as we did with our recipe. While it's cooking, rinse and dry your shrimp.

Shrimp, peeled, deveined, and rinsed clean. 

After the rice has cooked pretty much entirely, add in 1/4 cup of the chopped scallions, 1/4 cup of the parsley, the juice of a lemon, your shrimp (rinsed, and patted dry), and stir everything together. Be careful as you're stirring that you're not too vigorous, or else you may break up some of the shrimp. Once everything is well integrated, cover the pot and let it cook for a few minutes longer, then remove from heat and allow to steam for 5 - 10 minutes so that the shrimp gets nice and firm.

Adding our shrimp and parsley on top of the cooked jambalaya. 

Once that's done, the dish is ready to eat, so serve it out onto a bowl and garnish with more scallions, parsley, and hot sauce.

The Result
Get ready for some hot! This turned out to be incredibly spicy, but if you like spicy with a full body of flavor underneath, you'll love this dish! The tomato flavor coupled with the chicken and sausage and shrimp work really well together, and the various herbs compliment everything quite nicely.

Truth be told, we'll probably tone down the extra red pepper sauce next time, because this ended up being a touch too hot for us. But that's probably just us! What do you think? The hotter the better? What are some other spicy dishes we should try out?