Well not that hot and not that spicy for the likes of the folks. Ma and pa don’t like their dinnas to be any higher than a four on the “this shit is hot” scale. Tonight’s menu is an homage to that crazy ass hole Emril and his love for the BAM in life, meaning the, “this shit is hot” scale should be tippin tonight. Its got a little bit of everything this jambalaya; complete with some chicken thighs to piss off my pops, shrimp and sausage, well as close as I could get. I matched the jambalaya with something out of left field, some Cajun shrooms to keep with the dinner theme. As my goal is to make everyone in the house fat, I’m using a new tool that I picked up like three weeks ago… a new spring from pan, and makin a New Yuork cheesecake.
While writing last nights post I kind of got a hankering for jambalaya, why I have no idea, why would anyone get a hankering for such a heavy meal at two in the morning is beyond me but whatev. I started my day running to the farmers market to grab some sausages that they display proudly in their deli case. The recipe calls for Andouille sausage, which is a spicy, heavily smoked sausage, made from pork chitterlings and tripe, with its origins from France making it the perfect fit for Creole fare, which after all is spicy French influenced shit. I get to the market and of course theres no Andouille, only five types of Kielbasa and some other crap. Not even Mexican chorizo, (which they said could be a sub) which I found surprising because the farmers market is run by Mexicans (go figure). I ask the guy behind the counter if the Kreol Kielbasa is like Creole or spicy and he looked at me like I had five heads, so I took half of a regular kielbasas and a whole (for some ass hole reason) kreol kielbasa, and spend $8.20 on a pound and a half. Long and behold when I get the rest of the crap at Shoprite they have Andouille on sale for $2.99, FML.
On with the meal and prep after getting that annoying situation off my chest (lets just say I solved it in my own way). Jambalaya is an easy one, it takes about an hour to an hour and a half from start to finish, that’s why I added a few hours to my cooking day by making a cheese cake. So to start I did all my mes en plas (prep work) cutting onions, celery, bell pepper, shrooms, as well as preparing the meats; cutting the chicken into bit size pieces, taking the tails off my already pealed and deveined shrimp (because I was feelin lazy) and piecing up the sausages. Once the shrimp and chicken were set I seasoned them with the Emeril “Essence” Creole seasoning which is a basic spice rub to add the heat to the dish, giving it a nice spice from start to finish, nothing too crazy but def a little kick in the mouth.
Heat the oil in a large heavy bottomed pot until its nice and hot, throw in the peppers, onions and celery. After about five minutes once the veggies are translucent add the garlic, bay leaves, Worcestershire, and hot sauce (I used Steve’s and Ed’s Louisiana Hot Sauce, on sale for $.99). Let that stew for a minute and then add the rice, I used about two cups (upping the stock amount to about four cups) because I used more meats and veggies increasing the serving size to about six because I never make enough… SIKE! Add the chicken broth slowly, I’ll use Swanson when I don’t have fresh stock around (which I always try to) but today I still had some left from yesterdays batch. Fresh stock adds so much more depth to the overall flavor to the dish and ends up being cheaper if your going to use four or more cups of stock. Once all the stock is evaporated and the rice is nice and tender (about 15 minutes) your ready to add the meats, make sure your stirring often at a medium heat. Grab the spiced chicken and shrimp along with the sliced Kielbasa and throw it all in the pot. I gave it another 15 to 20 minutes, partially covered to let the chicken cook through, after 15 grab a big piece of chicken, let it cool for a sec and rip it open to check for its doneness. When you rip it, play around with it first, feel its consistency, how squishy it is. I read in one of James Beard’s books that a good chef should never use a thermometer or cut open a piece of meat, you should be able to tell by touch. Always touch you meat (that’s what she said) and soon you’ll be able to tell a medium steak from a medium well one and raw chicken from done chicken, its cool to mess around with your food. Season the jambalaya with salt and pepper, TASTE and season again.
A few minutes after throwing the rice in the pot I started with my mushrooms. Searching Google for “Creole sides” I found a mushroom dish which was prefect because I had some extra baby bells in the fridge (one and a half pounds). Cut the shrooms into quarters or halves if they’re small, add them to a hot large saucepan with ¾ cup of butter (a stick and a half!). Get them drenched in the butter over med high heat for a minute then add a ¼ cup of fresh ground black pepper, 5 oz (half a reg size bottle) of Worcestershire, a good big pinch of salt and about 10 drips of hot sauce. Let that stew, covered for about 20 minutes over med heat, make sure the shrooms aren’t sticking and the sauces isn’t burning at the bottom of the pan. Always use a wooden spoon to scrape the bottom of the pan to avoid that nasty smelling burning crap at the bottom of your pan. Hit them with some more salt if needed and your plating these bad boys right as your pulling out a piece of chicken to test its doness.
“Wow that’s good,” said Caite, ma and pop (Chris was working late tonight). Followed by, “wow my mouth is on fire,” bunch of bed wetter’s about anything spicy, Caite said to make the cheesecake tonight because she wasn’t a fan of Jambalaya but her plate along with everyone else’s was pretty clean. Definitely will use the right sausage next time even though the kielbasa was ok.
The piece da resistance was the cheesecake. Cheesecake Factory can piss off, charging $7.50 a slice for a small piece of cake, bite me! Throw a little CoolWhip on top and your making some serous moves. Everyone thought that I used low fat cream cheese, which is a good thing because you use two and a half pounds of it. What they don’t know wont hurt them.
All in all the meal was a good one. Its not the first time making jambalaya but it was the first for cheesecake, but both were good. All around goodness is the best, there were few complaints and whines about the food tonight which was refreshing. Even pops said how awesome the cheesecake was (that’s probably because he thought it was fat free hahaha). Tomorrow is another day but ill put off menu planning till then, right now I’m grabbing another piece of cheesecake because writing about it is making my mouth water. Until next time, smell ya later.
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