Jambalaya

Before Jambalaya was a recipe for me, it was the title of a camp song - one of my favourites! I think I cooked it for the first time just because I liked the song and was therefore intrigued by the dish.

It's a Cajun dish that can be made with a great variety of ingredients. The first time I made it, I followed a recipe in the "Extending the Table" cookbook (a cookbook unofficially known as "More with Less volume 2") for chicken and sausage jambalaya. In Louisiana, where it originated, it would always contain shrimp or other seafood (oysters, crabmeat). Before posting my recipe here I did a search on the web and found a great variety of methods, ingredients and spices. Try some of them, if you will but do try this recipe, especially with the ground cloves spice in it. I found it in a Creole and Cajun cookbook that Greg and Elizabeth gave us and have adapted it here for your enjoyment.

Try it with shrimp (I always have it that way) or substitute chicken or pork if you must. Along with the shrimp use a pound of Dettweiler's smoked sausage (substitute for the andouille sausage available in Louisiana) or smoked ham or a Dettweiler's shoulder bacon (cooked whole and then cubed).

An old standard recipe in our household, so much so that it's one that I've never really cooked from a recipe (and I doubt if mom did either).  For those looking for new "standards" you can follow the instructions that I've prepared for you.

This cute little piggy had the good fortune to live in the hills at a place called Bath, in Jamaica.  On my first trip to Jamaica I was amused by all the signs indicating "Jerk Centres".  I had my first taste of jerk pork on my first night in Jamaica, at the Pork Pit in Montego Bay.  The spicy jerk sauce dripping on the barbecue and spreading into the tropical air on clouds of smoke has a way of drawing the customers.  Prepare this recipe on your  barbecue and you'll bring a whiff of Jamaica into your backyard.

At the end of a day stuffing sausage I bring home the 2 lbs. of sausage meat that remains in the stuffer.  If we made garlic sausage that day, then I bring home garlic sausage meat.  Either way, I have developed a couple of favourite recipes to use this seasoned ground pork.  Pork sausage stew is one of them.  2 lbs. of sausage meat makes alot of stew but I like to cook so that I have leftovers as then I have an easy lunch to take to work.  You can make it with ground pork or fresh pork sausage, just as easily.

This has become a standard dish at our place since the Italy trip.  Thanks to our tour director for sharing this simple recipe (translated in order: garlic, oil (olive), and little hot peppers) and starting us off with some hot red peppers he bought for us somewhere around Naples (or maybe our bus driver, Giuseppe, got them from his garden - he was from Naples, home of the "peperonchino") We don't have enough sunshine in our backyard to grow these hot little numbers here but the chinese grocery provided us with a whole bag full, already dried, real cheap!  (At long last!  the actual recipe!)