When this choir came up from Louisiana each member brought with them a bottle of hot sauce. Not as a gift for the host families, but for themselves, since they'd heard Newfoundland cuisine was so bland. They were right. None of them really liked their touristy meal of fish n' chips - batter, starch, and white fish. Tartar sauce? Really? It doesn't really jump on the taste buds of someone whose injected themselves with chilies since birth. Crab cakes were as if someone had come with a big bucket of water and dumped it on their Cajun cooking and called it Newfoundland cuisine.
So the Mardi Gras meal they made for us featured two versions of every dish, to satisfy the Louisiana and Newfoundland differences in palate:
Regular (spicy) and wimpy (relatively less spicy)
Some Newfoundlanders even found the wimpy versions too spicy! I think Newfoundlanders are about as bad as a lot of French people I know (and probably British too, or Northern European in general) when it comes to dealing with hot spices. There's a reason Newfoundland's provincial spice seems to be "savoury", something you often can't even find outside the province, but makes Christmas stuffing (dressing) in Newfoundland what it is.
Anyway, I loved the spicy versions and the wimpy versions, mostly as comparisons of the way flavour is masked and revealed by different levels of added heat. Sometimes just adding heat wrecks a dish because it overwhelms any actual taste, but sometimes it enhances what's already there. A good cook knows how to balance, and that means having made a recipe a million times to get it all exactly right. Unfortunately (and fortunately, I suppose) when you're dealing with fresh peppers (which they weren't at the time, because it was practically impossible to find anything but an old jalapeno in Newfoundland grocery stores at the time) each time you make a dish will be different anyway because of the individual pepper. So you need to err on the side of "too little" heat, and then bump it up at the end with hot sauce. That's the safe way to do it, but where's the fun in that?
I fell in love with the jambalaya at the Mardi Gras party and spent the next 5 years of my life actively seeking recipes for it to recreate the experience. Jambalaya mixes the creaminess of risotto with the salty, chewy sausage fat of paella (andouille, chorizo or whatever other meat you want to add in addition to the freshness of bell peppers and often the sweetness of shrimp), all covered in garlic, paprika, cayenne, black pepper, and a bunch of other "creole" spices, the makings of which are the secrets of many a southern chef's kitchen. Paul Prudhomme, for example. All those bottled sauces and fresh spice mixes make him a fortune for good reason. You can buy bad ones, but there's no point since it's just a mixture of spices you should have in your pantry anyway. They're usually even made with ground spices, so you don't even need to bother grinding them yourself. Just make sure they're fresh or the balance of any recipe you use will be affected.
Mostly the recipes I discovered in the next few years were really high in fat from all the meat whose juices don't get drained off (that is the flavour, after all) and oil, and you generally overeat because it's like baby food - it is so easy to swallow and let slide down your throat. My first successful recipe called for a can of tomato soup...of all the recipes I'd tried, maybe 3, this was the best, but now I look back in horror. A can of soup for flavour? Was I born in the depression?
Then all I could find were tomato-based recipes and I found them too tomato-paste-y. They'd end up being more like sauce than jambalaya. I wanted to get away from all the tomatoes and I wanted it thick and sticky. This would depend on the rice used too, which should generally be long-grain.
Then I stopped eating sausage, and jambalaya is just not jambalaya without it. Usually there's shrimp and chicken too - you just toss in whatever fresh meat and meat leftovers you have in the kitchen - but the real flavour comes from the sausage. It should be a little hot (or a lot hot), and add its own salt and spice and savouriness to the skillet. It should be the body of the dish. If you take out the body, you're left with...the mind? The soul? Neither of these things are delicious.
But when I found lamb sausages at the Plateau farmers' market in Montreal I decided to use half to make a tamale pie and the rest to make jambalaya. It was going to be a real treat, so I needed the perfect recipe. I think I did well this time. Well, I think Emeril Lagasse from the Food Network plus my tinkering did well this time. Here's the hybrid recipe:
4 small lamb merguez sausages (traditionally it's andouille, but this worked fine. This was a bit of a random amount, but don't use too many. In fact, the smaller the better because you want to take them out of their casings and chop them up fine. The more they spread out in the jambalaya the more each bite will have a good flavour)
1 small cooked chicken breast (optional. The mix of meat in this is really nice, but it makes it dense and protein-heavy, so only use if you want)
A handful of shrimp (maybe 1/2 lb. You don't need a lot, but they're great to toss on at the last minute to give a very tender texture to contrast the chewy sausage. I didn't have them so I didn't use them)
2 tbsp creole seasoning (below...I love that in the original recipe it's called the chef's "essence" - Emeril Lagasse, did you expect all the jokes I'm sure you now receive about women like me cooking with your essence?)
1 tbsp olive oil
3 peppers, diced (green, red, orange, yellow or black. Whatever you want. The bitter green and black ones are more traditional)
1 onion, diced
1 cup celery, diced (I used half the bottom of a head of a bok choy. It's very similar and it was available at the farmers' market. Celery was not. I eat the greens of the bok choy seperately)
3-5 cloves garlic (about 2 tbsp!), diced. This depends how much you like garlic. I like garlic.
1/2 chopped tomatoes, diced
3 bay leaves
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp hot sauce (I actually don't have any of this, believe it or not, so I used a bit of liquid from a jar of open organic spicy salsa. It did the trick)
3/4 cup long grain rice (I used basmati. Not exactly traditional, but it worked perfectly)
3 cups chicken stock (or vegetable)
Fresh black pepper to taste
Creole Spice Blend (use all dried spices and just mix this all together. It's a great spice rub for meat at a another meal on another day, since it keeps in the fridge for a few weeks. My fall-back for fish or chicken is a dijon mustard on the meat or fish and then a generous sprinkle of this spice blend. Cook however you desire):
2 1/2 tbsp paprika (preferably a hot smoked variety)
2 tbsp salt (you need all of this. It's what makes this amazingly delicious)
2 tbsp garlic powder (Emeril and I are very much in agreement on this considerably large amount)
1 tbsp black pepper
1 tbsp onion powder (I don't have any of this...it's sadder without it, but not the end of the world. The end of the world is if you skip the salt)
1 tbsp cayenne (love it...)
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp dried thyme (these last two are the less-expected creole spices that you wouldn't think would be included but always are. Sometimes basil is also involved)
Looks like a ton of ingredients but this is a big mixed bowl of flavours - meats, vegetables and rice. You don't need to make any side dishes if you don't want to, though I always do because it's too easy to eat too much of this in one sitting otherwise.
Directions: In a bowl combine shrimp, chicken and the 2 tbsp creole spice blend. Don't crush the sausage but I am big advocate of using your hands to completely coat the meat in spice. Wash your hands. Cover and place the bowl in the fridge to keep cool while you make the rest of the recipe.
In a large saucepan or skillet heat oil over medium heat.
Now add the chicken mixture and sausage from the meat mixture. Try to keep the shrimp out. Cook until meat is done, about 8 minutes more, then add the shrimp for 2 minutes. They just need to turn pink and really don't need a long cooking time at all. Basically if you're not sure if they're cooked yet, they will be by the time you turn off the heat, serve the jambalaya, and sit down to eat it. Season to taste with black pepper first, and only then add more of the creole seasoning if you want.
Die of spice-induced euphoria.
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