Cajun Jambalaya with Okra

I am a huge fan of jambalaya, and it's something I almost always make at home, rather than order out. That is solely because I live on the west coast of Canada, where "jambalaya" usually involves pasta instead of rice, and seldom has sufficient seasoning - either in type or quantity, and shockingly often includes cream. When I was in New Orleans, I took great delight in sampling the extensive varieties of jambalaya available - each with a different ratio of ingredients (including seasoning), a different degree of sauciness, and a different notion as to how much one person could/should eat at lunch. Each one was a definitive jambalaya, in its own right.

Jambalaya is such a wonderfully versatile dish, that more's the pity that so few places up here get it right, and by "right" I mean an acceptable variant of the classic forms (Cajun or Creole), which is most emphatically not merely sausage and bell peppers tossed with pasta. Jambalaya needs to be a one-pot dish, rice based, and incorporating the seasonings of the Cajun or Creole variety. The rest - the protein(s), the wet/dry ratio, the choice of featured vegetables, these are all up to the cook. It can be cooked in a deep pot or a skillet, depending on how much you are making at a time.

I have been leaning toward brown, or Cajun-style jambalayas, lately, which tend not to be tomato based. This variation was conceived because I had picked up a bag of lovely looking fresh okra from the market, and needed something to make with it. As it happened, I also had some ham and a couple of chicken thighs that needed using, so, in fine ad hoc style, into the pot they went. My basic methodology is essentially the same as I previously wrote about, but tweaked to incorporate the okra.

Jambalaya with Okra
Serves 4

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large onion, diced
2 medium stalks celery, diced
1 medium green bell pepper, diced
1 cup orange (or red) bell pepper, diced
2 jalapeño peppers, diced
1 1/2 cups okra, sliced
8 oz ham steak, diced
175 g boneless skinless chicken thighs (about 2), diced
3 cloves garlic, minced/crushed
3 cups chicken broth or stock
1 cup parboiled rice
1 teaspoon red Tabasco sauce
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Salt-free Cajun spice blend (to taste - start with a tablespoon)

Heat a large cast iron frying pan well over high heat. Add oil, and tilt pan to coat bottom. Add ham cubes and sautée until they start to take on a bit of colour. Add cubed chicken, and stir well, but don't allow chicken to brown. Add the onion, celery, green pepper and jalapeño, and stir.

Cook until the onion turns nicely translucent, then add the garlic, Tabasco sauce, and spices. Stir well. Stir in the orange/red bell pepper pieces and the okra until thoroughly combined.

Stir in the (uncooked) rice, making sure that each grain gets well coated by the juices in the pan. Add the chicken stock/broth and stir again, making sure that the rice grains are all submerged. Bring up to a gentle simmer.

Turn heat to very low, cover pan, and cook for 25 minutes, stirring gently once at the ten minute mark. If it seems a little dry, you may wish to add a bit more water at this point, too. If you want to go crazy and add some raw shrimp, this is also the time to do it, at the ten (or, for small shrimp, fifteen) minute mark. Garnish with a little sliced green onion, if you like, and lots of black pepper. Pass the hot sauce.

Obviously, you can switch out the proteins however you like best: smoked sausage, turkey or duck meat, rabbit, venison sausage, shrimp, oysters, alligator, crawfish, or the classic, tasso (spiced ham) for serious points. You can increase or decrease the meat(s) and the amount of vegetables, depending on your taste or what you need to use up - this is a great way to use up extra bell peppers that might be lurking in your fridge.

A Thousand kinds of Chili: Texas Red

Why, that's my baked acorn squash stuffed with leftover Texas Red, that's what that is.

I have been eating chili all my life, but until I left home, I had only had chili that was made from ground beef and contained kidney beans. I loved it. I still do. But I soon realized that it's not the only chili kid on the block, and there are an awful lot of tasty contenders to get wrapped up in. These days, my chili might be made with ground buffalo and black beans, or, in Palle's case, ground turkey, pumpkin, and beer.

There is the great debate, of course: beans or no beans. People have very strong opinions on the subject, and while I am a fan of beans, generally speaking, I've certainly enjoyed the bean-less chiles that I've had. Tomatoes or no tomatoes is an almost as heated question. Certainly the chile of my childhood depended on tomatoes as part of the flavour and texture and overall body of the dish.

As I considered the different styles and recipes available, it gradually dawned on me that the dish I really wanted to make was closer to Mexican Carne con Chile than anything I had eaten as a kid, but I wanted an American style. A classic. I started doing some research on the classic preparations of Texas style chile, the infamous, notorious bowl of red.


Because I do like beans, I opted for red kidney beans on the side, and made them nice and spicy with lots of fresh green chiles. That's a whole separate recipe. And, because I do like cornbread, I made some to go with.

After extensively slogging my way through old American cookbooks and the interwebs in general, I found in Homesick Texan the inspiration for the chili that I wanted to make. It had almost everything I wanted: chocolate, ancho chiles, beer, chunks of tender meat braised long and low.

I confess to the scandalous addition of tomato paste, because I like the depth of flavour it brings, without contributing a particular tomato-y-ness to the entire affair.

Texas Red Chili
Adapted from Homesick Texan

4 ancho chiles
2 pasilla chiles

2 pounds of bottom blade beef, cut into 1/2 centimetre cubes

1 large onion diced

4 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 bottle of beer (I used Tankhouse Ale)

2 cups of water

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp cayenne

2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon ancho powder (just for good measure)
1/3 mexican chocolate tablet, grated
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon Bufalo Jalapeno Hot Sauce

I heated the dried chiles by holding them over a flame on my gas stove until they became pliable. I tore them open and removed the seeds, and tore the pods into pieces. They went into a bowl with enough water to cover, and were let to soak for half an hour while I cut up the meat. I sprinkled the meat lightly with kosher salt.

I seared the meat in batches in my Dutch oven, then added the onions and garlic, and stirred them around until the onions became translucent. I added the tomato paste and dry spices, and stirred them around until everything was evenly coated. I deglazed the pan with some of the beer, then added the rest as a braising liquid, along with the water.

The chiles were retrieved from their soaking liquid, and pureed in a mini food processor with a little water to make a thin paste/thick sauce. This was then added to the chile pot.

Once the chili began to boil, I turned the heat down to low and let it simmer for about three hours, stirring occasionally.

I smashed up a couple of wedges from a Mexican hot chocolate disc using my meat mallet, and sprinkled the cocoa dust into the pot. I had some masa harina standing by to thicken it up, but it really didn't need any help, as far as I could tell Maybe a Texan would have wanted it thicker, but the spoon was standing up pretty well on its own, so that was good enough for me. I let the chili simmer for another half hour or so, and served as you see above.

Oh, and if you want to serve it (or the leftovers thereof, perhaps mixed with any leftover beans, or perhaps not) in a squash, simply hollow out a nice acorn squash, brush with canola oil and sprinkle with cumin and smoked paprika. Bake uncovered in a baking dish at 350℉ for about 20 to 30 minutes. Fill with hot chile, and maybe a nice coleslaw on the side.

Using Up the Bits: Zucchini Balls

I do like zucchini, and I admire its versatility. My mother had an astonishing number of places to hide it when it overran the garden (and the neighbourhood), including a magnificent chocolate zucchini bundt cake and, more surprisingly, a sort of lemon curd whose bulk came from the skin-free pulp of the zucchini (not that you could tell).

As for me, I use zucchini in pasta sauces, in salads, as crudites, and of course the much-beloved Zucchini Fritters. Occasionally I stuff them, and that was what I was doing here...using a melon baller to remove scoops of zucchini flesh from the outer shell that would eventually house some meat-y rice-y affair. No photos of that dish, sorry; I got distracted by the fun possibilities of finding a way to use up the little zucchini balls that I had carved out. Half-balls, actually, as you can clearly see, since my goal was really just to empty out the shell of the zucchini, and I wasn't exactly heeding the form of the squash divots while carving.

I thought about tossing them into the freezer to be thrown in the next batch of curry or an upcoming pasta dish, but they were just so cute, and I couldn't resist doing something more immediate with them. So, I got out a wide skillet, heated a little olive oil until quite hot, and then threw in some cumin seeds. Once the seeds started to pop, I tossed in the little balls, and sauteed them briskly until they just picked up a little colour. A pinch of kosher salt, and voila! Tasty little side dish (or snack) that handily used up all the leftover bits, leaving me feeling virtuously waste-free and rather content at having a little extra something in the fridge.

Turns out, they were good both hot and cold, although a little slippery once chilled. This is definitely going to be the fate of the innards of the next summer squash that I feel the need to eviscerate. I'm betting that a few cherry tomatoes, and maybe some oil-cured black olives and some garlic would round this out into a perfectly wonderful dish all on its own.

Five out of Ten (and Chicken Yassa)

My last post, the You Are What You Eat list, was both easier and more difficult to come up with than I thought it would be. Sure, the items just tumbled out of my head and onto the page, but I agonized about whether they were truly representative.

As I was eating lunch today, I noticed with some bemusement that my little container of leftovers contained five of those top ten items: Rice, lemon, chicken, onions, and chiles. Chicken Yassa, to be precise (please see recipe in the comments below).

On the weekend, I made a stop at the South China Seas Trading Co. on Granville Island, which is my go-to destination for a number of hard-to-find ingredients including hominy, epazote, dried chiles, and all manner of interesting Asian and Central/South American ingredients. As always, just standing in the store caused me to revise my weekly menu substantially as I stared at piles of fresh poblano peppers, long garlic chives, jarred mole sauces, and fresh young ginger and turmeric roots. A brightly coloured pile of habaneros by the cashier mocked me until I slid a couple into a brown bag and added them to my basket - and my menu. Fresh habaneros don't have a long shelf-life, so I immediately shouldered Yassa into my menu plan. One must take advantage when one can, and Yassa is a little lighter on preparation than Jerk, which is another favourite use for the habanero.

Traditional Yassa recipes start with marinating the chicken and proceed through an on-the-bone grilling stage before the dish is completed. My adaptation is really more of a quick stew, starting off-the-bone and simmering the marinated meat in the lemony, mustardy matrix that makes up the sauce.

Whoa. I can't believe I left mustard off my list. That would have made it six out of ten!

Rice and Beans, Jamaican style

I eat rather a lot of beans, for someone who grew up with beans primarily in chili or occasionally in the Boston Baked family of dishes. I embraced garbanzos for hummus, the Southwestern American tradition of adding black beans to just about anything, black or pinto beans for refried beans at breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and flageolets for cassoulet. Got exciting variants, like Romano beans, Cranberry beans, Pink-eyed peas? Anasazi beans? Bring 'em on. I do like beans.

I also eat a lot of rice, partly because I came late to some of the great rice-based cuisines, and am now making up for lost time. The New Orleans classic, Red Beans and Rice, was a happy combination of these two ingredients and led to other discoveries such as Moros & Cristianos, and, at long last, Jamaican Rice and Peas. At first, I was a little concerned about the title "Rice and Peas" because I'm notoriously unfriendly toward the green garden variety of pea (unless a) raw, b) whole, such as snow-peas, or c) as split pea soup). From there, I confess to being a little confused, when the pea-component of the dish turned out to be considerably more bean-like in character, often being made with kidney beans. I'll happily eat kidney beans, so there was no worry about it, but it didn't entirely make sense to me.

Eventually, I discovered that the traditional pea used in Jamaica is the Pigeon Pea, which is a brown, oval bean originating in Africa. At last, I was able to align the Pigeon Pea with the Black-Eyed Pea in my mind, and came to a sort of understanding.


The thing that makes Jamaican Rice and Peas so very appealing is that it is quite spicy, and contains coconut milk, another ingredient I have come to love. Additionally, Rice and Peas is a one-pot dinner, which makes clean-up a quick affair.

There are as many Rice and Pea recipes as there are cooks who make it, like national dishes the world over. This one is adapted from Full of Beans by the delightfully named Violet Currie and Kay Spicer. It's a lower-fat version than many you'll find, but the flavour is fantastic. I use Kidney beans, as the recipe suggests. Pigeon peas are difficult to come by, in this neck of the woods. Usually, I make this as a side dish and omit the ham, which makes it vegetarian/vegan.

Jamaican Rice and Beans
adapted from Full of Beans by Violet Currie and Kay Spicer

1 teaspoon canola oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups cooked kidney beans (drained and rinsed, if canned)
160 ml coconut milk
1 cup diced ham (optional)
1/2 teaspoon hot sauce of your choice (habanero would be very appropriate)
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon cayenne powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground sage
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup uncooked rice (I use parboiled for this dish)
1 medium red bell pepper, diced (optional)
sliced green onions to garnish

In a medium pot with a tight-fitting lid, cook the diced onion, garlic in the canola oil until it starts to turn translucent. Add the beans, coconut milk, ham (if using), and spices, and bring to a boil. Let cook, stirring, for about a minute, and then add the rice and 1 & 1/4 cups boiling water. Bring the mixture back up to a boil, stirring, then immediately cover. Turn down the heat to a bare simmer and leave undisturbed (no peeking!) for 25 minutes. When it is done, stir gently and fold in the bell pepper garnish. Sprinkle with green onions and serve.

Chili, Biscuits, & Technology

Mostly, I tend toward cold, light, and refreshing meals at this time of year. Sometimes, however, the need to cook from the pantry, or the sort of odd light-headedness I get from eating sporadic non-meals for too long a stretch, makes me want something hearty. Chili fits the bill, because it is definitely hearty, but also employs the flavours of Mexico which eases the fact that it is not really summer food in most respects.

I've been on something of a mission to clear out my fridge before we head away to Scotland this coming week, and thus I have sometimes found myself with interesting challenges on my hands. Having used the last of my tortillas, and not really wanting to get or make more that will then languish in my absence, and being quite low on bread, I decided to make biscuits to go with my chili. Usually, we can demolish a pan of biscuits in pretty much record time, and if there were any leftover, I could always freeze them. Besides, biscuits are a classic sort of Texan dish, and quite appropriate for chili. Especially, if they are cheese biscuits.

For the chili, I was simply using up ground beef that was in the freezer, and a miscellany of beans and tomatoes in the pantry. The various seasonings are things that I always have on hand, and so I made what for me is a fairly standard bowl of mixed bean chili.


I should say here, that I am a huge fan of "proper" Texas chili, the quintessential "bowl o' red" as well as more faithfully Mexican dishes, such as Posole (which to me has always seemed to be a sort of chili), but I also enjoy my mother's style of chile, which as you can see, uses ground beef, kidney beans (I also added black beans, since they were handy), tomatoes, and peppers. It is a fine, comforting dish, and it makes a fine conversion to Chili Macaroni, Chili Dogs, or even Chili Omelettes, if that's what floats your boat.

The biscuits are my oh-so-simple biscuit recipe, gussied up with a little cheddar cheese and some freshly snipped sage from the window sill. For the first time, I actually used the food processor to mix the dough - filled with trepidation that the dough would yield tough little bullets instead of my predictably airy little scones. I need not have worried, as it turned out. The processor did an excellent job of integrating the cheese, and the biscuits rose up as tall as I could have wished.


They were as good a match for the chili as I had hoped, too. The flavours of sage and cheddar complemented the chipotle-tinged chili, and the whole meal (rounded out with cole slaw) turned out rather well.

I'm cautiously pleased with the food-processor adventure, and will probably employ it again. I am often torn between my absolute pleasure at doing things the old fashioned way, and the speed and convenience that comes with using newer kitchen technology. The only reason I might not use the processor, really, is that it is marginally more effort to clean than a bowl and wooden spoon. Since I can throw the processor bowl and lid into the dishwasher, that probably shouldn't be much of a deterrent.

The chili is gone, having been reincarnated (heh) as chili dogs a couple of nights later, and the few biscuits that made it through the night were eagerly devoured the next day.

The fridge is almost bare. We leave for Glasgow in two days.