Jambalaya (Louisiana One-Pot Rice)

Variations

• Creole, or red jambalaya: the version here. The New Orleans "city" style, red because it contains tomato.
• Cajun, or brown jambalaya: the country style, with no tomato at all. Its colour and its flavour come entirely from browning the meat hard and lifting the fond with the stock, so steps one and two go much further and the deglazing does the rest. Two schools of one dish, and which came first is still argued over (browning).
• Whatever is to hand: oyster, crab, crawfish, duck, pork, or sausage alone. Having no fixed combination is the character of the dish — it began as a way of putting what was left into one pot.
• How hot: the cayenne sets it. Tourist versions are mild and home ones considerably less so (chilli and heat).
• Not gumbo: gumbo is a soup, with rice cooked separately and ladled under it; jambalaya cooks the rice in the liquid. Nobody in Louisiana confuses the two.
• The same method elsewhere: paella matches it right down to not stirring and wanting a crust on the base, and plov and biryani also cook rice in one pot. Khao pad and egg fried rice go the other way, frying rice already cooked.
• Same region, same country: chili con carne, smoked brisket, clam chowder, chicken fajitas.

Tips

• Do not stir after the rice goes in. If one rule survives from this recipe, it is that one. Every stir knocks grains together, strips their surface and puts starch into the liquid. Jambalaya is right when the grains stand apart, which is precisely the opposite of risotto (cooking rice).
• Do not lift the lid either. Each time you do, steam leaves and the liquid you measured is no longer the liquid you have. Trust the twenty minutes.
• Do not clean the pot between steps. What the sausage and chicken leave on the base is doing the work of a stock, and in the Cajun version it is the entire colour of the dish (building umami).
• One and a half parts liquid to one of rice. Less than for plain rice, because the tomatoes and vegetables give up their own. Poured at the usual ratio it comes out sodden.
• Long grain. Short-grain and glutinous rice carry too much surface starch and stick to each other whether or not you stir. Louisiana growing long-grain rice is not a coincidence.
• Prawns in the last five minutes. In from the start they cook for twenty and turn to rubber. Scattered on top and steamed under the lid is exactly right.
• Colour the chicken, do not cook it. It has twenty more minutes ahead of it, and cooked through now it ends up dry. The point of that step is what it leaves in the pot (heat control).
• Keep the ten minutes off the heat. That is when the remaining moisture evens out top to bottom. Opened straight away, the top is dry and the bottom wet.
• Scrape up the crust on the base and serve it. It is the aim, not a mistake — the same thing as paella's socarrat, and in Louisiana people argue over who gets it.
• Fold with a fork. A spoon presses as it mixes and crushes the grains at the last moment. Two or three lifts from underneath with a fork is enough.
• Bloom the spices in the fat. Paprika and cayenne release into oil, so thirty seconds with the vegetables before the stock goes in is a different thing from dropping them into liquid (blooming spices).
• The seasoning is decided before the lid goes on. Andouille is salty, so hold some salt back and taste the liquid before it goes in. Once the rice has absorbed everything there is no fixing it (salt and seasoning, stocks and broth).
• Reheat leftovers in a pan. A microwave makes the grains leathery. A spoon of water in a covered pan brings it close to new (reviving leftovers).