This Emeril recipe is from the Food Network, Essence of Emeril era. You can still find the recipe online here. Jambalaya makes a nice & quick weekday meal, compared to gumbo which requires dedicating a full day to put together properly.
I tend to omit the shrimp, since Jessica will only eat shrimp if battered and fried or smothered in butter, scampi-style. I use Aidells Cajun Style Andouille, since that’s the only nitrate-free option we can find at Kroger. (Jessica has found nitrites and nitrates to be a migraine trigger for her.)
This time, I went with boneless, skinless chicken thighs and breasts. Leaving this in the whole ~1 hour cook time will result in shredded chicken – which is fine by me, but not everyone likes it that way.
“Salt and pepper” in the ingredients leaves the seasoning balance up to you. In retrospect, every time I made this before I didn’t add nearly enough salt, leading to bland and boring rice. When seasoning at the start of cook time rather than later, it can be tricky to judge the salt level; seasoning and then reducing when making sauces can lead to overly-salty results.
In this case, the rice also soaks up the liquid and expands, so it seems the water should taste as salty as you want the rice. This time, I added 1-2 tsp chicken base along with the water, plus roughly 1 tsp of Kosher salt.
