Chicken and sausage jambalaya

Recipe:

• 1 box Zatarain's Jamalaya mix
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper (2 teaspoon if you're not a wimp)
• 1/2 pound chicken breast meat
• 1/2 pound andouille sausage or fine kielbasa sausage (andouille is best, but often unavailable)

Dishes required:

• 4 quart covered saucepan, non-stick
• Small stainless steel pot
• Bowl
• Wooden spoon
• Plastic spoon

Directions:

• Using scissors, cut up chicken breast meat into thin strips as if you were about to stir-fry, then cut strips into smaller chunks.
• Put olive oil into stainless steel pot
• Put crushed red pepper into olive oil
• Put pot on stove, turn burner on high
• When crushed red pepper begins to sizzle, use wooden spoon to shove it around a little to make sure it all gets coated with oil and cooked, then toss the chicken into the pot and stir vigorously with wooden spoon until all chicken is coated with pepper and oil and is seared white on all sides. Remove pot from heat and pour chicken into bowl and set aside.
• Toss the wooden spoon in the sink (it touched raw chicken)
• Using scissors or a knife, cut sausage into chunks.
• Cook the Zatarain's in the saucepan according to the directions on the box, putting the chicken and sausage into the mix mixture at the appropriate time.
• Enjoy!

The chicken, cooked this way, is extremely tasty (and spicy!) and combines well with the sausage. The only other thing I would do would be to add some fresh bellpepper (chunked) into this, that's the only thing it really lacks. The local chefs go nuts with their jambalaya, but let's remember that this was invented as a peasant food to take advantage of leftover meats, and thus should be simple. The Zatarains mix already has a fair amount of spices in it and the crushed red pepper and fresh pepper oil adds more, the need for bellpepper is equal parts flavor and texture.

Oh - be careful with the raw chicken, y'all. Make sure you wash your hands well after handling it and don't re-use instruments that touched raw chicken. Salmonella is rampant in raw chicken nowdays.

-- Badtux the Lazy Cook Penguin