re: Jambalaya Gonzales Style with Pics (pdf Download)

Glad to see you in this thread pochejp. I'm trying to fill in the blanks from the .pdf. Went back to the original thread and found some answers in your replies. Still missing a few things. Some are not as important (seasoning amounts, because it is to taste) but others (like heat settings, HIGH or MEDIUM-HIGH) might be useful. See highlighted portions / questions below.



Jambalaya - Gonzales Style
(size: 8-10 servings)
(recipe for 6 quart cast iron Dutch oven on gas stove top)
LINK

Ingredients:
- Vegetable Oil (3/4 cup)
- Pork Temple Meat (3.5 lb.) or Boston Butt (5.0 lbs, due to water content loss in the meat) (Can use 4 lb. boneless chicken thighs if you like, but it is harder to darken)
- LeBlanc's Smoked Sausage (1 lb) (or other good smoked sausage)
- Rice (3 cups of Mahatma Extra Long Grain) *
- Chicken Stock or Broth (6 cups) *
- Onions (3 regular sized yellow onions or 2 very large yellow onions, between 1.2-2.0 lbs, diced 1/4" size) **
- Green Onions (1/2 cup diced) **
- Garlic (1 heaping tablespoon) **
- Black Pepper (approximately XXXXXX amount) (to taste)
- Garlic Pepper (approximately XXXXXX amount) (to taste)
- Creole Seasoning (LeBlanc's or Tony Chachere's) (approximately XXXXXX amount) (to taste)
- Chicken Bouillon (3 cubes) ***
- Louisiana Hot Sauce (1 shot glass)
NOTES / Questions:
[* 2:1 ratio liquid to rice.] (If using water, add one cube of chicken bouillon per cup of water.)
[** Can also use Bell Pepper, Celery, Parsley]
[*** QUESTION: This is 3 cubes of bouillon in addition to using stock/broth? So it would be a total of 9 cubes, if you used 6 cups of water + 6 chicken bouillon cubes?]


Instructions:
1.) Cube pork, leaving small amount of fat on each piece. Season pork pieces with XXXXXX amount of Creole seasoning.
2.) Brown pork in cast iron Dutch oven in vegetable oil set on XXXXXX heat. Let it fry until it sticks then stir. Do this over and over again. Season the meat each turn as your brown it. Sometimes a little water is needed to cool off the grease. The sticky part (gratin) on the bottom of the pot will dictate the color of your rice. Cooking time is approximately 30 minutes.
3.) After all the meat is dark browned, remove pork from pot. Meat may be kind of tough at this point, but will tenderize as it boils in the liquid/rice mixture and in the rice cooking/steaming process.
4.) Brown sausage at XXXXXX heat for approximately XXXXXX minutes. After cooking the sausage, remove from the pot. Don't overcook the sausage until it is fried dark brown because it cooks the taste out. Just mildly brown it.
5.) Drain the grease but don't lose the gratin.
6.) Add onions, green onions, garlic (All seasoned with XXXXXX amount of Creole seasoning), and splash of stock/broth/water. Cook at XXXXXX heat until clear, approximately XXXXXX minutes. This is where you scrape the bottom of the pot, getting all the brown gratin from the pork. Add small splashes of stock/broth as you cook to not burn the trinity mix. This is where the color/darkness starts to come in. The browner the meat was cooked, the darker the gratin will be, making this mixture dark as well.
7.) After those are cooked, add meat back to the pot and mix well. IMPORTANT: Cook all the water out of the meat / trinity mixture at this time, so the liquid : rice measurements will be accurate. (XXXXXX heat for approximately XXXXXX minutes.)
8.) Add chicken stock/broth and bouillon cubes.
9.) Once comes to a rolling boil, taste the liquid. It should be a tad bit salty because the rice will absorb the saltiness. Add black pepper, garlic pepper, Creole seasoning, and Louisiana hot sauce.
10.) Skim the remaining grease off the top.
11.) After you get the taste you want, and it is on a hard rolling boil, add the rice. Never add rice until the water is boiling! Let it come back to a boil (at XXXXXX heat) until it starts to expand and "jump out the pot". (Approximately XXXXXX minutes). This expression means due to the hard boiling liquid and the rice entrained in the liquid, sometimes comes over the side. This is a very important time relevant to the "popping" of the rice. Let the rice get noticeably bigger / expand before cutting the heat and covering. You can tell it is getting ready when the rice is thickening by stirring your spoon in the mixture. As it thickens, it will get noticeably harder to stir. This can be achieved on HARD boil and it is critical to the rice popping correctly. (Approximately 5 minutes of boiling.)
12.) After it gets to where it's ready to cover, cut back on heat (to lowest heat setting - or cut back head to 20%?) and cover. DO NOT LIFT THE LID FOR ANY REASON FOR 25 MINUTES!). If your lid does not seal tight, wrap a towel around the lid seal. (Be careful of the burner below if this is done.)
13.) Let this cook for about 25 minutes for this size and then lift the lid roll the rice. Don't stir. Roll it from the bottom to top at 4 different spots. Take your spoon and from the 12,3,6, and 9 o'clock positions, go down to half an inch from the bottom, along the sides, and then move to the center, lift, and roll. Do that at the four positions then recover tight. This will release steam that will do two things: Help cook with the steam and start to dry out the rice. Re-cover and cut off heat.
14.) Let sit for another 15 minutes and then un-cover and eat.

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I have some friends who put a can of cream of mushroom in their's. Anyone ever heard of this? 

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Yes, if I have I have it I'll sometimes. Just add it after you have browned your onions, and before you return all your meat to the pot. Keep in mind its liquidy so count it as stock. I think it's an 8oz can, if so, subtract 4 oz of stock.

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If you brown temple meat for about 45 minutes, there is no need to caramelize onions for 3 hours. Just cook them until they are clear.

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While this is true, carmelized onions take on an entirely different flavor, and can add a different flavor to the jambalaya. Why can’t you do both? That’s what I do. But to be honest, im not much of a beer drinker (whiskey for me) except when I do jambalaya or pastalaya, and I enjoy taking more than a couple hours to cook a jam because I can chill and put down a few beers. Plus, it’s almost as fun to me to see how dark I can get it to come out without cheater sauce.

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The onions begin to produce water and this deglazes the pot from all of the browned meat bits that are stuck to the pot. This is where my color comes from.

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Well this is pretty much what was described in the OP and the finished product had almost no color.

Carmalizing the onions is the single most important step in a jambalaya. No amount of common sense will get them Yankees from "Gonzales" to understand.

quote:

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Well this is pretty much what was described in the OP and the finished product had almost no color.

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I can assure you that the OP had the color he wanted, while it may not be as dark as you like, it is the sought after light brown, paper bag, color that Gonzales Jambalya is suppose to be

Where does one find pork temple meat? I've never heard of this.

Also, if you wanted to use some chicken, maybe do 1 3/4 lbs of the meat and same amount of chicken? My family really likes chicken in their jamb.

Gratin is not the right term. What you mean is Fond (Foundation)

Au Gratin definition: Covered and cooked with browned breadcrumbs and sometimes cheese

Fond is French for "base" and commonly refers to the browned bits and caramelized drippings of meat and vegetables that are stuck to the bottom of a pan after sautéing or roasting.

Anyone got a copy of this pdf? Sorry for old bump. Link is dead

Edit:

Should have checked the sticky thread. My bad!