re: Anybody Cooking in the Jambalaya Fest Cookoff?

It is also way harder to coax a good color out of chicken compared to pork. With just chicken, nearly all of your color comes from browning your onions. Since color is a big part of the judging criteria for a jambalaya, you need nearly flawless technique and timing to get the color they're looking for out of a chicken jambalaya.

Jambalaya Fest is kinda like NASCAR. The rules don't really make sense, they don't maximize the flavor (speed) of the cars. What they really do is limit the cooks to as few variables as possible so that the competition is truly one of skill.

I get why they do it, but the end result is a lot of borderline inedible jambalaya.

Note: Your odds of getting a tasty jambalaya go up the later in the weekend you go because more and more cooks have been eliminated. On Friday, everyone is cooking. By Sunday, all the mediocre cooks have been eliminated, so your chances of getting a good batch are significantly higher. Saturday is a crapshoot.