Jambalaya

Quick Look_______________

This recipe comes from Jon Chou. I made some modifications to the ingredients and had to round up or down a little to get it to fit into bulk ingredients. It should work fine. It's a complete meal with rice and meat, all you need is a large stockpot of this, plates, and spoons.

• Prep time: 20 minutes
• Cook time: 45-60 minutes
• Difficulty: Intermediate/Easy. Be careful the Jambalaya doesn't burn on bottom-very common
• Labor Intensity: Having 2-3 extra people could really help.
• 30 servings, adjust by 1.5x if your group tends to eat multiple servings.

Ingredients_______________

• 8lbs Boneless skinless chicken breast or thigh [about $16 on sale]
• Black pepper
• 8 medium onions [5lb bag for $3.50 at safeway]
• 8 Bell peppers [$8 safeway]
• 1 pk kielbasa sausage [$9 for a 3lb package of evergood kielbasa @ costco]
• If you have it in your budget, I'd recommend getting another pack of sausages.
• 6 cups chicken broth [$3-4, jar of chicken broth base at smart and final on international, aisle 6. Just add water. Or you can get chicken broth at costco for a little more, but save a trip!]
• 6 cups water
  
• Stewed tomatoes ($3-4, 1 lg cans from costco, about 6.5lb) Diced tomatoes will work too
  
• Cayenne pepper (add to taste, maybe 1-3 tablespoons)
• Rice (15 cups)
• 2 stalks celery (optional)
  
• chopped green onion as garnish (optional)
• Total: about $46.00

Directions_______________

• Pour chicken broth and water in a pot and heat on high until boil.
• Cut up chicken into pieces as you would for curry
• Cut up onions, bell pepper, and celery into chunks
• Slice up sausages into 1/4 inch coins
• In large stock pot, cook onions for a minute, breaking all the pieces apart
• Add chicken; cook until there's no more raw chicken; add a little pepper
• Add hot chicken broth, diced tomatoes, bell peppers and sausages
• Add cayenne pepper; bring to boil
• If too tangy, add a little sugar to taste
  
• Wash rice
• Once it's boiling, add rice (and try to get everything under the water line--maybe add a little water, but water should come out of the bell peppers too)
• Once it's boiling again, bring down to low-med heat. Stir occasionally (so bottom doesn't burn); rice cooks in 30-45 minutes (just check it constantly)

Tom's Tips and Tricks_______________

I helped make this dish one time and one lesson I learned was that it would be easier to make this in 2 large stockpots rather than 1 larger one. It was hard to stir this much and the bottom inevitably burns. You can even distribute among 4 smaller stock pots and stir all of them occasionally. This would utilize the heat of 4 burners rather than 1 and cook it all faster as well as make it more managable to prevent burning. It would help to have an extra person so each person watches 2 pots instead of 4. You could recombine into 1 large stockpot at the end to make transport easier.

[Possible side dish] N/A