Jambalaya – Cajun Food for Football

By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com

I wasn’t really in the mood to cook the other night but decided to go ahead and make some Jambalaya. My wife said it would go perfectly with the Saints playing football at the time (versus the Vikings) so there you have it. 🙂

Jambalaya

I decided to go with a low-cal version of the dish since it is a weekday. For those of you who don’t know how my diet has worked for the past 8 months….I only eat low-cal and low-fat foods during the week and allow myself to eat up to three meals on the weekend containing whatever I want. As long as I make my goal weight by Friday, I’m free to indulge. That’s how I can do all these food reviews and not gain a pound.

Crawfish tails are low-calorie as is with only 70 calories per 3 ounces. I bought a frozen package containing 12 ounces for the dish (210 total calories).

Sausage has a ton of calories and fat in it normally but I chose turkey breakfast sausage instead of the usual pork sausage. The turkey breakfast links had 720 calories for the entire package and I only used half of the package for the dish (total of 360 calories.)

Ingredients

Vegetable Mix

3 Bell Peppers (Red, Yellow, Green)
2 Jalapeno peppers
2 Tablespoons butter
1 Red onion
5 Cloves garlic
1 Cup Chicken Broth
16 Ounces San Marzano Diced Tomatoes
1 Teaspoon Harissa
2 Tablespoons Paprika
1 Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
2 Teaspoons Salt
2 Teaspoons Ground Black Pepper
1 Teaspoon Cumin Seeds

Crawfish and Sausage

1 Tablespoon Vegetable Oil
12 ounces crawfish tails
2 Teaspoons flour
6 Turkey Breakfast Sausage Links

Finishing

2 Cups Cooked Jasmine Rice
1 Bunch green onions
2 Tomatoes
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce

Seed and dice the bell and jalapeno peppers. Dice the red onion, green onions, and the whole tomatoes. Finely dice the garlic.

Melt the butter on high in a dutch oven (such as the one I have in tools of the trade.) Add the bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, and red onion to the pot. Cook until soft (about 5 minutes.) Add the garlic. Cook for another 5 minutes until all ingredients are integrated and fragrant.

Add the chicken broth and cook for 10 minutes, stiring. Add all of the spices and stir to incorporate. Add the tomatoes, stir, and cover. Cook for 30-45 minutes, stir to prevent burning.

While the vegetable mix is cooking, thaw and drain the crawfish tails. Heat half of the oil in a skillet on high and add the crawfish tails. Cook for 3 minutes. Stir in the flour and incorporate completely. Add mixture to the dutch oven and mix to integrate.

Heat the rest of the oil in the skillet on high and add the turkey sausage. Cook for 10 minutes and turn to keep from burning. Sausage should be well browned. Remove from the skillet and cut into 1/4 inch pieces. Place sausage in dutch oven and incorporate with mix. Re-cover and continue cooking.

Cook the mix until reduced and “thick”. It’s hard to say how long given the temperature ranges and size of the pot, just to say that you need to cook it until reduced. Normally this won’t take more than 30-45 minutes.

Cook the rice while you wait and when the mix is thick, turn off the heat and add in the rice and fish sauce. Add in the chopped tomatoes and stir completely. Serve Jambalaya in bowls and sprinkle green onions over the top.

FoodieCuisine.com