Jambalaya....

Jambalaya...

...maybe? I don’t know if anyone else would consider this to be a true jambalaya but it’s near enough for me and tasty to boot. Rice, meat, veg and a nice dose of chilli and paprika. Mmmmmmmmmm... I’ll describe the one in the photo but it is very adaptable to whatever you happen to have hanging around.

Start off by slowly sweating off some onions in a deep frying pan. Really let these sweat down before adding some garlic and diced peppers and frying these also. Next add the meat. In this case I used some chilli sausages that were in the fridge and chopped them up into rough meatballs. Traditionally the meat is chicken or seafood but I don’t see why you can’t use whatever you want...Just remember to add some chilli if it’s not in with the meat! Add a good helping of paprika as well at this point and cook the meat out.

Once cooked add some white wine to deglaze the pan. Put in the rice and give it a good stir so the rice starts to absorb the flavour. Next add some chicken or vegetable stock to the pan and let it simmer for 20 minutes by which time the stock will be nearly all absorbed and you have a lovely tasting jambalaya.

Part way through absorbing the stock..

Whilst it is simmering I also tend to add a little bit of finely chopped veg for extra colour and texture e.g. peas, finely diced carrot. As I said earlier, it’s a good way of using up what you have in the fridge...

Finally I've added some chopped tomato and chives over the top. Delicious!