The Hybrid, Dirty Rice Jambalaya!

This dish takes the best of both dishes and combines them! A spicy savory dish that feels like comfort food but will wow guests as well!

I have loved Jambalaya ever since I went to New Orleans... The culture and the creole flavors were amazing! Every once and a while I like to try and recreate some of that at home... with a personal spin of course!

I came across thechunkychef.com who had an amazing dirty rice dish that got me started on this thought process! Her paste to marinade the chicken in was amazing and I followed her lead for a lot of it... It's also the first stage of the cooking process for this dish..... This is a one pot meal, so your dishes are cool at the end of the night, but the down side is there are stages to get everything going....They are easy stages, but none the less stages, before you can sit down and leave it to do it's thing.

This is your chicken paste line up! Dried Parsley, red chili flakes, minced onion, garlic powder, paprika, black pepper and oregano. Mix equal portions of each together in a bowl then squeeze in fresh lime juice and some oil to create a decent paste to coat the chicken.

Coat the chicken thigh's well on all sides and started cooking them skin side down in a cast iron pot. You could do this in a Dutch oven, but I love my cast iron pot!

Flip to cook on all sides and then set aside when well browned. Next place your chorizo or hot Italian Sausage in the cast iron pot. Do not wash it out, leave the remaining paste and burnt bits in there. I tried this two ways, pre-cutting the sausage raw and then cooking, or cooking whole and slicing later... without a doubt, please cook them whole and cut later! Experiment success!

In both the case of the chicken and the sausage they are best to be pulled off before fully cooked, because they will do a lot more cooking in the dirty rice mix and we don't want them to get dry!

Start cutting up the veggies for this dish.... a compliment of both spicy and usual veggies! Cut these into small slices and I sautéed the hot peppers and onion in oil, still in the same pan with the crispy bits and paste just to take the heat out and, added the celery just before the broth and crushed tomatoes go in.

I poured in 2 1/2 cups of beef broth, and a can of crushed tomato over the veggies and stirred around. I then added 1 cup of organic long grain white rice.

Stir the rice in and then nestle the chicken thigh's and sausage back in. Bring to a boil and then lower the temp to simmer for 15-25 minutes (covered) or until the rice is done. Stir occasionally!

This comes out without liquid, as the rice absorbs all of it, but you'll want to watch that it doesn't start to scorch to the bottom or dry out too much.

I also cooked up some shrimp by boiling them in water, they were shelled so I did not want to just throw them in the dirty rice/jambalaya. Once I had them cooked and shelled, my rice was done thus you can't really mix them in to coat with the seasonings, and I was not wanting to have them cook in the mix for 25 minutes as I thought that would way over cook them! I opted to plate them plain on top! It tasted great but next time I may try and reserve some of the chicken paste and sauté them in the same seasoning before they join the party!

Plate this out ensuring everyone gets a chicken thigh and some sausage.

Garnish with cilantro and green onion. I love any dish that calls for green onion now as I have so much of it growing in my garden! This looks vibrant and colourful and the spicy medley of all the meat rice and veggies, is a comfort food like no other! All in, this meal took approximately 1 hour from prep to plate. A little longer than I usually like, but well worth it, and only cleaning 2 pots (1 if I didn't boil shirimp) was a bonus!

The Recipe:

Create the spicy mix by adding 1 Tbsp of each:

Dried Parsley, red chili flakes, minced onion, garlic powder, paprika, black pepper and oregano. Mix together.

squeeze in the juice of one lime and stir, continue to add splashes of oil, just until you have created a workable paste.

Coat 4 chicken thighs on all sides the start cooking skin side down in a cast iron pot with some oil. Brown all sides of the chicken and set aside.

Cook 3-4 Chorizo or Hot Italian sausage to the cast iron and cook until almost cooked. Pull out of the man and slice.

Core and slice up 2 poblano peppers and 1 jalapeno, 1/2 a red onion and 3-4 stalks of celery.

Sauté the peppers and onions in the cast iron with oil to get the heat out and once done, add in the celery.

pour 2 1/2 cups of any meat broth you would like and 1 20 oz can of crushed tomatoes.

Stir this up before adding 1 cup of white rice. Bring your chicken and sausage back to the pot and bring to a boil, before lowering the heat to medium and covering to simmer for 15-25 minutes, stirring occasionally. This will be complete once your rice is tender and most if not all of the liquid is absorbed... be careful not to let this scorch.

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