The other night, my son Smartacus and I went on a date to the local basketball emporium, for a game between the local boys and some dudes from across the dell.
It was a fine evening. Before we left, I made a jambalaya from scratch – no seasoning packet, just winged it based on several decades now of scarfing down moguls of it, my favorite steaming stew.
What I do, and this is critical, is make a flour-and-oil “roux,” the magic potion in any Cajun dish.
You start with a little oil, overheated. If your stove has a setting “uncomfortably high,” use it. When you’re at the point where you’re afraid to walk away from the pot, the oil is just the right temp. Might be smoking a little. Good. You’re on your way to Cajun napalm.
Then you sprinkle in a little flour, which is a cocaine-like substance you buy at the store.
So, I stir the flour into 4 tablespoons of oil, super hot…just a little at a time. Then, with an old wooden spatula, you furiously stir the oil and the flour, really stir till your wrist hurts a little.
Concentrate. You’ll be tempted to look up at the Niners game on TV. Don’t. Stir, damn it, stir like you’re making love, which in Cajun country, is akin to making a roux, only there’s more at stake with a roux. Groups of people are counting on that roux, unlike when you’re making love, when it’s only two or three. Burn this roux, and you’re tossing it out and starting over.
With a little voodoo and a dash of luck, after five minutes, you have a good ebony roux. After 10 minutes, you have a great ebony roux. Get my point? But really, five minutes will do it.
Usually, I also add the drippings from the discs of smoked sausage I’ve sauteed, then set aside. Those drippings are super good for a roux, though you’ll probably need to add a couple tablespoons of cooking oil as well.
FYI, I’m trying patent what I call a “Mexican jambalaya,” using your usual smoked sausage PLUS chorizo, which is probably the most-flavorful material on the planet and is often a little too strong for us suburban folk. I love it straight (no chaser). I also love it mixed in with my jambalaya — a smoky, oily, fiendishly mystical dish when properly prepared.
Really, you should look up a legitimate recipe from a legitimate source. But improvise. That’s the fun in anything, right..the part where you fake it? You follow the rules, then you go off script and do whatever you like. That’s the secret to having fun in the kitchen.
Actually, the secret to having fun in the kitchen is cooking with Smartacus. Buzz me. I’ll send him right over.
Anyway, have you ever dated your own kids? I’m a quirky writer with holes in my psyche. My hobby is walking the dog. I don’t believe in one-party systems or Aristotle’s universal truths. What do I believe in? I believe in kids.
Having kids is a very good thing indeed, though it doesn’t seem young couples are doing it much anymore.
Or, at the very least, they’re reluctant to have kids, given the expense, the agony. I mean, how are you going to spend $400 on sushi when your daughter Boston needs her wisdom teeth out? Obviously, young adults are not having kids because they have their priorities straight in this me-me-me world.
Yet, I still urge them to have kids. Sure, there’ll be some rocky years. But if they can power through the parenting and come out the other side, they can date their spouse or even their kids, as I did with Smartacus last Friday night.
“Wanna go to the game at the high school?” I asked.
Twenty bucks for two tix to see the Spartans crush the Vikings, both teams exhibiting the kind of energy you rarely see in the NBA. It’s the kind of energy you only see in the early stages of a French rebellion. Or maybe at a sock hop. Do they still have sock hops? They certainly should.
Anyway, cheers to high school hoops, in an old gym filled with a million memories. Cheers to a frosty winter night with the moms in sweaters and the dads – mostly former rec league coaches – second-guessing the pre-game drills, the timing of the timeouts, the way the teams get the ball to the hoop.
In basketball, it’s all about how you get the ball to the hoop…it’s everything. It’s life. It’s kids. It’s everything.
If you get the chance, hit the high school gym. It’s everything too. It’s life. It’s kids. It’s everything.
Please let me know if you’d like to join the Feb. 4 hike at 3 pm at Fryman Canyon, with drinks later in Sherman Oaks. Space is limited. To RSVP, email Letters@ChrisErskineLA.com. I’ll send details early next week. Props to reader Carol Schmiederer for setting up the post-hike bash. Cheers
Another crazy treasure from your wonderful meandering writer’s brain. Thank you. It almost makes me want to cook something. Almost.
“unlike when you’re making love, when it’s only two or three” — had coffee coming out of my nose on that one!
“Cajon napalm.” Righteous!
“Having kids is a very good thing indeed, though it doesn’t seem young couples are doing it much anymore.” Great advice, Chris. Young couples need to hear that kind of advice over and over from us oldsters. $400 sushi. Creating a family. No comparison.
What else do you put into your jambalaya? The ladies from the San Francisco Argentine Resumers bookclub would like to know, please.
Here’s the recipe:
INGREDIENTS
1 pound smoked sausage (pork or turkey)
Some chunked chicken or shrimp if you have it (both optional. Sausage is the dominant flavor)
Chicken stock (1-2 cups)
Cooking oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3 tablespoons flour
1 green pepper, chopped
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
1 bay leaf
White rice
3 cloves garlic, minced or chopped
Creole or Cajun seasoning
COOKING
In a large pot, sauté onion, pepper and garlic in oil, season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
In same pot, sauté the sliced sausage and chicken or shrimp in a little oil. Set aside.
In the oil from sausage, add two tablespoons of cooking oil to start your roux. Boost the tempt to medium-high. Sprinkle in flour, not too much. Stir furiously for 5 to 30 minutes, till it darkens.
Season with 1 to 2 tablespoons of Cajun seasoning.
Add tomatoes and tomato sauce
Add back the onion and pepper.
Add bay leaf.
Make white rice on the side (about 2 cups).
Add rice to the pot and stir together.
Add chicken stock. If you like it a little soupy, 2 cups. If you like a thicker rice dish, 1 cup.
Add more Cajun spice or pepper as needed.
Simmer at least 1 hour.
Serve with crusty bread or biscuits, and a splash of hot sauce. Maybe a beer or a nice red wine.
Cheers!
Okay, my dear Chris, I grew up in Southern Louisiana, in Lake Charles, only 15 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. I must say that no one can get a proper roux from only five minutes of stirring. It’s more often twenty to thirty minutes of non-stop stirring, and then more stirring (with the vent on) as you add additional ingredients for gumbo, jambalaya or etiuffee. The basic roux is the same for all the above (and for any Cajun dish). As far I as I know, if anyone ever mentions “stir for 5 minutes” any decent Cajun cook would immediately say, “Sorry, where are you from?”.
(Not that any of the food would be inedible. Plenty of people who haven’t been exposed to proper Southern cooking would be thrilled and impressed with anything prepared as ‘Southern” or ‘Cajun”)
However I know you have a deep respect for food and (it seems) especially food from the south. Otherwise i’d never interrupt one of your columns because I love them so.
You’re absolutely right. Lake Charles knows roux. I stand corrected, though my five-minute roux varnished the rice remarkably well. I was actually kind of surprised!
I’m in foreign territory here, having eaten but never cooked Jambalaya, and with no memory of watching high school hoops. My only claim on bucketball was going to a near-empty field house as a Boulder under- grad to watch a week night winter game wherein Wilt The Stilt (Kansas) ran the court, stuffing ball after ball through the hoop. As for Jambalaya, in a richochet life I once had a consultancy, doing some workshops and seminars in New Orleans, where the food sang like music, often spicy but rarely as hot as the Jazz at Preservation Hall. I recall Mason Jar drinks at Prudhomme’s little hole-in-the-wall cafe; dinners at Commander’s Palace that always seemed to be a part of huge raucous parties; breakfasts at Brennan’s when the chicory coffee smell made you feel a little delirious; eggs Creole in the
patio of the Creole Cafe near The Hall, that made the rain dripping off the gutters seem to flouresce (can food really do that, and create illusions?). In New Orleans, as you know so well, it can. If your (Mexican?) Jambalaya can conjure any of this, it gets the vote of this culinary neophyte. As for me, Turkey Chili, Lemon Chicken, Eggs Megas…etc. I do the easy stuff, along with daily Fruitopian fantasmagoria which my in-house food critic finds more boring than not. What is needed is a young male college student around, to applaud with his fork and spoon. Chorizo is a gorge in Mexico, a cactus, a spice, a condiment, and obviously much more than meets the palate. Maybe that’s why it makes the dish in your descriptive seem, and look, so complex.
Forrest, here’s the recipe. It’s very forgiving. Just don’t burn the roux:
Here’s the recipe:
INGREDIENTS
1 pound smoked sausage (pork or turkey)
Some chunked chicken or shrimp if you have it (both optional. Sausage is the dominant flavor)
Chicken stock (1-2 cups)
Cooking oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3 tablespoons flour
1 green pepper, chopped
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
1 bay leaf
White rice
3 cloves garlic, minced or chopped
Creole or Cajun seasoning
COOKING
In a large pot, sauté onion, pepper and garlic in oil, season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
In same pot, sauté the sliced sausage and chicken or shrimp in a little oil. Set aside.
In the oil from sausage, add two tablespoons of cooking oil to start your roux. Boost the tempt to medium-high. Sprinkle in flour, not too much. Stir furiously for 5 to 30 minutes, till it darkens.
Season with 1 to 2 tablespoons of Cajun seasoning.
Add tomatoes and tomato sauce
Add back the onion and pepper.
Add bay leaf.
Make white rice on the side (about 2 cups).
Add rice to the pot and stir together.
Add chicken stock. If you like it a little soupy, 2 cups. If you like a thicker rice dish, 1 cup.
Add more Cajun spice or pepper as needed.
Simmer at least 1 hour.
Serve with crusty bread or biscuits, and a splash of hot sauce. Maybe a beer or a nice red wine.
Cheers!
Oh, it looks & sounds delish! All the fixings for a great date!
…Actually, the gorge is spelled differently, and some of the other things attributed to Jambalaya are the issue of a creative internet cook in a small rural village Al sue de la frontera. So, in the interest of reducing misinformation (is that possible?) from this media, I must admit to the same ignorance I professed at the outset. Thus, the dish may not be complex, except, perhaps, in New Orleans(?)…and—full disclosure—I’m tempted to attempt it.
Thanks for the recipe! Now others can give this a try if they want to heat up a mid-winter day and roux one’s vision of the time to come.