Every so often, I get a hankering for some sort of New Orleans cuisine. The food down there is some of the best that I have ever eaten. Last night, my sorority sister from Tulane (Lizzy) and I decided to make jambalaya. I have made red beans and rice (actually, I make it pretty often in the wintertime), and I have made gumbo, but I had never tried jambalaya and we felt like doing it. I rarely use recipes unless I am making something I have never made before, and even then I usually just read through the recipe to get an idea of how I want to make whatever it is I'm making. With the jambalaya, however, since rice was invloved I decided that I ought to follow the recipe pretty closely. I did follow the recipe pretty closely except I added one extra thing...shrimp! Yum.
Lizzy and I did the grocery shopping for the jambalaya the night before we made it. Apparently she is pretty tight with the butcher at Whole Foods so now we get hooked up whenever we go. It's pretty freaking sweet. We also had to spend quite a bit of time in the spice aisle since we had to make a whole jar of cajun spice. Going to the grocery store with Lizzy was significantly less torturous than going by myself, so from now on I might have to drag her whenever I go. If you had a recipe book with you like we did, it is also much easier to have one person say the ingredients and then the other person grabs them. We were also pretty lucky that my sister was home, because we didn't bother to look at this "cajun spice recipe blend" we had to make to determine what we already had in the cabinet at the house. My sister actually brought a ton of spices with her when she moved, but I don't know what they are and I don't even think she knows what they are so we needed to know what they were. Anyway, we had gathered all of the spices the recipe called for in the cart by the time we decided to call Cathryn, who was VERY cooperative. She is very supportive of my new endeavors in the kitchen so it's pretty lucky. In fact, as Lizzy was on the phone with her and I was reading to Lizzy the spices we had in the cart, I thought Cathryn was just guessing which spices we had until I asked Lizzy to ask Cathryn if she was SURE we had chili powder to which Lizzy responded "she says she can f-ing read, Diana." Little did I know that our sous chef had lined up every spice on the counter for us.
Anyway, we went home that night and made some steak and scallops for dinner (that recipe another time) and I chopped up all the vegetables for the jambalaya. Almost every New Orleans recipe (gumbos, jambalayas, red beans, etouffees, etc) starts with a trio of vegetables referred to as "The Trinity." So, pretty much anytime you make a New Orleans anything you can rest assured it will probably start with a medley of chopped onion, celery, and green pepper. One of the reasons why I love making these dishes is because they are incredibly low maintenance to cook- usually chopping the vegetables is the most work intensive part of the whole thing and then from there everything just goes into one big pot where the flavors all absorb and melt into each other to form a little slice of Heaven.
If you have read some of my previous posts, you might notice that we rarely make just one dish for a meal...We almost always have a salad of some sort at the very least, and usually there is some type of side dish or appetizer (usually pretty basic...cheese). Well, with jambalaya you don't really need a side dish because it sort of is a big, giant side dish with enough stuff added to it to make it a main dish, and I couldn't think of any New Orleans appetizers. So I decided we just needed some french bread. Everything in New Orleans comes with french bread to scoop up whatever meal you're eating, and there is so much of it produced down there that there are even recipes to get rid of the stale french bread (see: bread pudding). Then I got really ambitious and decided that I was going to go out in search of french bread DOUGH. I almost tried making it myself but you have to let it rise, etc. which takes hours. Anyway, I figured Whole Foods would have french bread dough so I made the trek up. Unfortunately, french bread dough does not exist at Whole Foods, BUT while I was on my way up there my brilliance kicked in and I remembered that there WAS a great New Orleans appetizer- oysters on the half shell.
Fortunately, for some strange reason my dad taught me how to shuck an oyster when I was a sophomore in college. So, much like changing a flat tire on the car (he taught me that as well), it is something I had always kept in the back of my mind as knowing how to do should there ever be a dire need, but never tried since there was never a dire need. Well, now we had a dire need because once I got into my head that I was going to buy (and shuck) a dozen oysters there was no turning back. I briefly thought about going over to Blacksalt to get some really good oysters, but lost the drive once I got to Whole Foods and saw that they even sold oyster shucking knives (they call it a "clam knife" but I know what it's really for). Here is a small oyster disclaimer: apparently you're only supposed to eat oysters in months that end in R. In the summer months, when the water is warmer, they spawn or something and for whatever reason aren't as good to eat. Well, I know plenty of people that eat oysters in the summer and have lived to talk about it and I think if they were going to kill someone then stores probably wouldn't sell them. So, it took me about 10 seconds to get over that hangup. Actually, not quite because the more I thought about it, I thought to myself wow, it would really be unfortunate if someone got sick so let me go back to googling on my blackberry "New Orleans Appetizers." Lo and behold, what comes up??!!? OYSTERS ROCKEFELLER. Oh my goodness gracious it was like a sign from God. And guess what else? I already had ALL of the ingredients for it at the house. It was just meant to be. Crazy. I ordered my dozen oysters, grabbed a loaf of french bread and headed home with a little spring in my step.
Note: Oysters Rockefeller was invented at Antoine's Restauant in the French Quarter in New Orleans. It is named "Oysters Rockefeller" because it is SO rich.
Once home, I began the process of shucking the oysters. Cathryn has a Hilton Worldwide Top Chef apron at the house which came in handy because I didn't want to get oyster juice all over me. So there I was, apron on, oyster shucking knife in hand, bag of oysters on the counter. I grabbed one, wrapped it in a towel, stuck the knife in the corner, hoped and hoped it wouldn't slip and go through my hand removing my thumb or something, and ta-da! The oyster opened. It really wasn't that hard and I ate a couple raw since they looked SO good and were really cold and our fish friend had thrown in a couple extras. I will spare you the entire process of shucking an oyster, it really is something that you need to see to know how to do.
As I was washing off the oyster shells, Lizzy walked in and gave me the "ohhhhh man wtf are you doing now" look. I explained calmly that I was making Oysters Rockefeller and she was going to need to stir the ingredients in the pan since I was elbow deep in oyster goo and could she please open a corona for me. Ever the good sport, she did it and then we finished the sauce for the Oysters Rockefeller. I used some of the ingredients from the recipe I found online, but changed around the amounts and added a few things (my recipe below).
Then we started the jambalaya. I had not chopped the chicken breast into bite size pieces yet so I pulled it out of the fridge to do that. Unfortunately in the ONE night it was in the fridge it had managed to go bad, so Lizzy had to make an emergency run up to Whole Foods to get a new one (this is why we usually keep chicken breasts in the freezer). Anyway, she came back with a brand new package 15 minutes later and we threw the oysters into the oven to eat while the jambalaya was finishing (recipe below). Crisis averted.
If I were to serve this for a dinner party, I would serve the oysters first as (and on) a small plate, followed by a plate of jambalaya with salad on the side and a piece of warm french bread. That's exactly how we ate the meal, but the oysters were eaten straight out of the pan, in the kitchen, and then we made up the plates of salad, bread, and jambalaya and ate those in the sunroom. We're pretty low key in the summer! I was also pretty low key about photographing this meal so all you can see is the Oysters Rockefeller and Greg's plate that he had already started. But you get an idea.
Overall, the jambalaya took about an hour to prepare and cook, making it a pretty doable weeknight meal. It also makes enough to feed a small army, so everyone was able to take leftovers for lunch today. It is also pretty inexpensive for how much it makes and therefore perfect for our little budgets. The Oysters Rockefeller were the big hit of the night- I realized they had to be pretty good as I walked downstairs and Cathryn said they were so tasty that she was literally licking the shell. Everyone did. All around it was a wonderful night of great food and as always, great company.
Oysters Rockefeller
12 oysters (if you don't know how to shuck them, ask the fish person to do it, reserving the juice)
1 stick of butter
1/2 cup minced white onion
3 cloves minced garlic
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh spinach
1 tbs finely chopped fresh parsley
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup white wine
Grated parmesan cheese
salt and white pepper, to taste
4 cups of rock salt (to cover the bottom of a pan so you can rest the oysters in it when you put them in the oven)
-Shuck the oysters, saving the juice. Put them in a bowl with the juice. Throw away the tops of the shells, scrape the muscle out of the bottoms, scrub them a little, rinse and dry.
-In a small frying pan, melt the butter. Add the minced onion and garlic, saute for 2 minutes or until the onion is clear.
-Add the chopped spinach and parsley, saute for another minute.
-Add the white wine, salt and white pepper.
-Add the bread crumbs.
-Pour rock salt about 3/4 inch high in the bottom of a baking pan. Arrange shells so they are resting in the salt bed.
-Put a little bit of oyster juice in each shell. Put one oyster in each shell.
-Spead a spoonful of the spinach/onion mixture on top of each oyster.
-Sprinkle each with parmesan cheese.
-Bake for about 12 minutes at 450 degrees.
Cajun Spice Mix
Mix together the following in a jar:
-5 tbs paprika
-1 tbs black pepper
-1 tbs white pepper
-1 tbs cayenne pepper
-1 tbs dried thyme
-2 tbs garlic powder
-1 tbs dried oregano
-1 tbs salt
-1 tbs chile powder
-1 tbs onion powder
Jambalaya
1 Stick butter
3 cups chopped celery
3 cups chopped green pepper
3 cups chopped white onion
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, chopped into bite size pieces
1 pound andouille sausage, thinly sliced
1/2 pound shrimp (cooked or uncooked)
1 tbs cajun spice mix
1 tbs black pepper
3 tbs hot sauce
3 bay leaves
1 large can of crushed tomatoes
8 cups chicken stock
4 cups uncooked long grain white rice
-Melt the butter in a big pot. Add celery, green pepper, and onion, saute for 10 mins.
-Stir in chicken, sausage, and shrimp, cook until the chicken is done (and shrimp if you used raw).
-Add spice mix, pepper, hot sauce, bay leaves, tomatoes, and chicken stock. Bring to a boil.
-Add the rice, return to a boil.
-Cover the pot with a lid, turn off the heat. Let sit for about 20 minutes until the rice absorbs the liquid. Stir and serve with a piece of hot french bread.
Laissez les bons temps rouler and Happy Hostessing!
