Last summer, I went on the most amazing trip across America
with my favourite holiday company, G Adventures (check out their sitehere). In 18 days, I travelled from San
Francisco all the way across to New Orleans but it didn’t occur to me to add
any extra days onto the end of the trip so that I could eat my way through New
Orleans and it’s southern-style cooking wonders.
The Louisiana swamp |
The wildlife- besides hundreds of crocs! |
Me and a baby gator, bred in captivity after he lost his mum! |
On my last night before my flight home, I did
try some traditional fried chicken with sweet potato waffles and it was
delish! Sadly though, that was my one
and only meal in New Orleans as the next day, it was airline food all the
way.
I love jam-jar drinking glasses. I've got some arriving any day now! |
I was kind of disappointed that I
didn’t get to try the famous Louisiana dish, Jambalaya, so when I found a
recipe for it in a cook book, I decided to give it a try. I have adapted this recipe so that the veg
gets a little more cooking time and used brown rice instead of white because we
know how much better it is for you!
Ingredients:
½ a teaspoon
of cayenne pepper, regular pepper and salt
2 tsp of
thyme
350g diced chicken
breast
1 onion
(chopped)
2 garlic
cloves, crushed
2 yellow
peppers, diced (yellow peppers are really good to help your hair grow
apparently!)
2 sticks of
celery, diced
115g
pancetta
175g chorizo
sausage, sliced
1 tin of
chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp tomato
puree
225ml
chicken stock
450g raw
prawns
450g cooked
brown rice
Method:
1
Mix together your cayenne pepper, regular pepper
and salt in a bowl. Add the diced chicken and toss to coat. Set aside until later.
2
Place the onion, garlic, peppers, celery, pancetta,
chorizo, tinned tomatoes, tomato puree and the chicken stock into your slow
cooker. Cook this batch of ingredients
on low for 2 hours.
3
After two hours, add the chicken to the slow
cooker. Stir into the mix, cover with the lid and continue to cook for 6 hours
on low.
4
For the last 30 minutes of cooking, add your
cooked rice and raw prawns. Stir through the mix and cover again until the
cooking time is up. A handy hint I’ve
been told about slow cookers lately is that if you remove the lid half an hour
before serving, this allows the dish to thicken up. I’d keep this dish covered though to allow
the prawns their half an hour to cook, then you could switch your cooker to
‘warm’ and take the lid off then.
5
Serve and enjoy though sadly, Jambalaya would
probably taste much better if you were eating it next to the Mississippi!
This dish
was really tasty but because I haven’t tried the real thing in New Orleans, I
can’t possibly compare it! Looks like
this might be the perfect excuse to visit New Orleans again though!
Jambalaya...by Helen! |
Happy
eating!