Jumbie, Jumbie, Jumbie

In my family Jambalaya isn't just a classic New Orleans dish, it is an institution. We have even renamed it to express our love and admiration for this special dish. We call it Jumbie! Jumbie doesn't refer to just any Jambalaya, Jumbie is my mom's jambalaya recipe. My mom's jambalaya is unique and a little different than the classic Louisiana jambalaya. If you have eaten Jambalaya before chances are that the Jambalaya you indulged in was brown in color and somewhat spicy. A brown spicy jambalaya is a Cajun jambalaya that gets its brown color from the bits of meat that stick to the bottom of the pan during cooking and are later deglazed with stock. My mom's jambalaya is orange. She prepares her jambalya using the Creole cooking method which incorporates tomatoes into the cooking process. Jumbie is my all time favorite thing my mom cooks. My brothers and sister and I request jumbie on every special occasion, when bad things happen to us and we need cheering up and every time we bring a friend to visit from out of town. Trust me, this stuff is legend. There have even been cheers about it that I have heard chanted from the mouths of my 2 year old nephews.

So, how could I not attempt to learn this recipe and start practicing early to perfect this family favorite? I couldn't - and lets just say it is a good thing that I started practicing now. At the rate my jumbie successes have been going I will be lucky to have this one down by the time I have my own kids. Prior to this week I have only attempted jumbie once before. On that occasion my rice was so undercooked that it was like eating crunchy rice crispy coated jumbie. My attempt this week looked like jumbie, smelled like jumbie and even tasted liked jumbie - a success you say? Not quite! Only 2/3 of my jumbie achieved these goals. The rest was a burnt crusted mess at the bottom of my stockpot threatening to ruin my shiny new Le Creuset! So my jumbie hurdle seems to be achieving the right balance of stirring the rice and proper cooking temperature. I am not willing to give up on this one - I will forge forward until I am able to deliver a perfect "mommafied" jumbie!

Jumbie

Recipe Courtesy of my Momma

Ingredients

3 tbs of vegetable oil

3 yellow onions

1 green bell pepper

1 bunch of green onions

4 cloves of garlic

2 links of smoked sausage

2 cups of rice

2 8ounce cans of tomato sauce

2 cups of water

2 pounds of shrimp, peeled and deviened

Salt and Pepper to taste

Dried Parsley flakes

Preparation

Chops all vegetables. Quarter sausage and halve shrimp.

Heat oil in the bottom of a heavy stockpot and add yellow onion and green bell peppers until softened. Then add green onions and garlic. Once all vegetables have softened add tomato sauce, water, rice and sausage.


Bring to a boil. Add shrimp and reduce heat to a simmer

and cook covered for 25 minutes. Stir frequently or infrequently ( I obviously have no idea , you would need to ask my mom) during cooking. Salt and Pepper to taste. In the last five minutes of cooking, add 3 tsp of dried parsley flakes.