Directions

1

First, take a cast iron or heavy aluminum 5-quart Dutch oven and heat the margarine and olive oil to sizzling over a medium-high flame. Then drop in the onions, bell pepper, celery, mushrooms, garlic, and parsley and cook the mixture—stirring continually—until it wilts. Ideally, this should take about four to six minutes or so.

2

Once the veggies soften, add the cabbage to the pot and stir it thoroughly into the mix. Then stir in the tomatoes, the chicken broth, and the tomato paste and combine all the ingredients once again. When everything is uniformly blended, add the seasonings: the salt, black pepper, cayenne, bay leaf, sweet basil, seafood seasoning, poultry seasoning, and hot sauce. Note—to have this jambalaya come out rich and zesty instead of flat and bland, do not omit any of the herbs and spices! And under no circumstances omit the cabbage, even if you don’t like it. You’ll never taste it in the finished dish and it’s what keeps the rice grains moist as they cook!

3

At this point the rest of the recipe becomes a true “South Louisiana throw it together dish!” Once the mixture has been seasoned, “throw in” the chicken cubes, the chopped shrimp, the diced sausage, and the raw rice. Then stir everything together once more until uniform, put the lid on the Dutch oven, reduce the fire to low, and allow the pot to simmer until the meats are cooked and tender and the rice fully absorbs all the liquids.

4

I know the urge is to keep peeping into the pot to check on the cooking process, because you are absolutely convinced that the whole dish is going to stick and burn. But resist the urge and don’t even lift the lid until the dish has been cooking for at least 20 minutes. Only after that allotted time can you check—go ahead and take the lid off, stir everyone once, fluff up the rice, and put the lid back on. It should take only 15 to 20 minutes more to finish the jambalaya to perfection.

5

When you’re ready to eat, spoon out a generous, piping hot helping (a one-cup serving is recommended by the American Diabetes Association) into a soup bowl right from the Dutch oven. Of course, any quantity you refrigerate for later use can be reheated in the microwave and tastes just as good (some folks say it’s even better!) as the just-cooked stuff. Oh, yeah—a sprinkling of thinly sliced green onions over the top when you serve it lends a coup de grace to the meal.