Around the Kitchen Table - How to make Tex-Mex Jambalaya

¡Hey there! I'm Chef Dennis Littley and we are here today with Around the Kitchen Table. This is our 4th episode in this new series and today I'm going to be making my version of jambalaya. I like to call it a Tex-Mex jambalaya because of how I've adjusted the spices and the sausage in it. So we're going to be working on that. Remember, it is my version, so if you're having panic attacks that I've changed the classical jambalaya, don't No, it's just me having fun in the kitchen. I'm going to turn it over to Susan, my co-host, and we're going to talk a little bit about what she's been doing because she's just coming back from Milan. How you doing, Susan?

Hi, everyone. I'm good. I'm great. Still a little bit of jet lag. I don't know how long I can milk it. How long can I milk it for? Another few days, I think. I've been telling my family, "Jet lag, jet lag." I'll use it for a little while, but it was a wonderful trip. I went to the Kitchen Show, and if by any chance you missed last week's show, look it up because I was live from Milan along with a few special guests of chefs. And Chef, what a show that was!

That was a lot of fun. I was so happy that we could get Nazim in there and his wife Elisabetta, and we could talk to her a little bit about her book and you know, her cooking. So we have to get her on one day soon too.

Yeah, yep, that was really, really fun. And you know, first off, off the top, I want to say to many of our friends a happy Passover and a big food holiday, of course, that is too. And I'll tell you, having lived in Manhattan, having had an apartment in Manhattan on the Upper West Side, I can tell you that The food, the Jewish delis and the other restaurants, and my goodness, I really had the best of everything when I was in Manhattan. So that was enjoyable. So happy Passover, everyone.

That's right. Happy Passover. I hope everyone's going to have a joyous holiday, whichever they celebrate. We have Easter coming up, and I'm sure there's some other ones that I don't even know about, but, you know, everyone's got their holidays to celebrate in their own way.

And a lot about food too.

That's right. Well, it's all about food because, you know, all the ethnic groups that celebrate these holidays, everybody eats. Everybody's got such a rich history in food.

Yes.

They're around the table with their grandparents and with their aunts and uncles, and this has been going on for generations, and it's just, you know, it's a wonderful thing.

It is, it's very special. And speaking of around the table, Chef, can I take you for a little tour around my table?

Please do.

So here I am in my breakfast room, and I'll just pick up the laptop. And again, I hope I don't get you a little seasick or dizzy, but I want to show you sort of, you know, where I am. And I guess I'll go around here, and Chef will see how this works.

Okay.

Let's see how this works out. I have lots of plugs around me, so I'm not sure how well it will work. But here is— now this is— it looks like a sofa, right? And in fact, it is. This is my sofa in my kitchen. So it's an actual sofa, and what I did was we raised it up about 6.5 inches. And let me tell you, this is the magnet for everyone who comes into the breakfast room. And it's, it's a real sofa and it sits perfectly with the table height. So, this is something that I've had in my kitchens. This is my second kitchen I've had it in for since, I guess, 2003 when I first sort of had this idea that I wanted comfort in the kitchen. So that was really a lot of fun. I'm going to go around here and I want to show you my table and maybe a little bit of a wider shot. Just a second.

Yep.

So here we are. Here's my table. Let's see how far out I can go. And we go here, and— so there we go.

Well, that looks like a very comfortable breakfast, no?

Oh, that's a little tour. That's just a little tour I thought I'd take you on of my breakfast area. So what do you think?

That's great. You know, I won't take you on a tour of my kitchen because it's just so ugly right now. We'll have to do some before and after pictures when we do finally start working on it.

Yes, yeah, we will. And you know what, it doesn't reflect on the food. So, you know, we have different kitchens here. My— your kitchen, you have terrific food, and I'm not so sure about mine.

So I'm sure you do a great job.

That's okay. So let me tell you what I ate in Milan. Do you want to know?

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay. So, you know, it was sort of random things because during the show, and this is a gigantic fair, kitchen fair, and so at one point I needed a break and from a little bit of a distance I saw just kind of a central little food stand, you know, where they have food stands in these convention centers, and I saw what looked like something like lasagna or something. I said, okay, it's calling me, I'm going to go over there. So I did, and I realized that it was like plant Parmesan, which is one of my favorites.

Mine too.

So I stepped— I was on line, and then there was also pasta, some sort of pasta with pesto, and you could have one or the other. And I said, please, I said, give me a little bit of each. Chef, let me tell you, that was the the best eggplant Parmesan, truly, I think I've ever had. This is in a convention center. How could that be? I guess—

The food there is just phenomenal. I had one of the best Italian meals I would have had in the States in a train station in Sorrento. I mean, in a bus station. It was across from the train station. We got off. We were tired. It was too late to find someplace to eat, so I said, "Let's just go over there." We ordered so much food, the guy was embarrassed when he gave us the check because I think it came to about $30 and people usually didn't eat much there.

Oh my God, yeah, no, I know. I had no idea and I'm glad I did. And then one evening for dinner I went with a group and I'll tell you, I think I made a little mistake because I ordered veal Milanese, which was, you know, very good, but I expected it to be, I guess, you know, just me not knowing, I expected it to be sort of like a piccata type of dish. But it's not, it's breaded. It's just a very, very simple breaded dish. So I, you know, that may have not been the best choice to make. But, and then the last night I was there, I had dinner alone. It was near the apartment and just a little neighborhood place. Of course, they had spaghetti carbonara on the menu. It was just Fantastic. That was good. I had various risotto dishes, and so that was terrific.

You just can't eat bad in Italy. I'm telling you. A lot of the perceptions of food that we have or how things have changed over the years from what they actually cook in Italy as opposed to what we call Italian, there's been a lot of big differences. What we think of— it's just like getting a coffee. You ask for a macchiato in Italy, you're not going to get what you get Starbucks, you're going to get a macchiato. You're not going to find the same things. You know, it's our descriptions have become Americanized for Italian dishes, really.

Yes, it's true. You know, there's a little bit confusion on the expectations there. So, so how about you? Did you have a good weekend?

Absolutely, absolutely. I went out and got a new pan so I could cook on my induction burner.

Sweet.

Got a really nice Caffalon. I can never know if self— I can never pronounce it right. People from that company need to give me some pans and some lessons on how to pronounce it. Cephalon, Caffalon. But anyway, you know, it's a great pan for the induction burner. It's nice and heavy, and we'll see how it works today with what we're making.

So tell me, do you like— for example, when you're boiling pasta or whatever, would you prefer a pan like that or a taller, narrower?

I don't really use it much narrower. I like to use a lot of water when I cook pasta. I use one of my big soup pots, actually, for pasta when I cook it. It's probably this round, but maybe about almost twice as high.

Okay.

I always use a lot of water when I cook it. I know people are saying it's a waste of water, and some guy came up with a method for using absolutely the least amount of water you have to for cooking pasta. It doesn't quite come out the right. Yeah. Yeah. I use a deeper one for that. These are great for making dishes that you have to let simmer. I've always been a blender of foods. When I say blender, I mean I'll put chicken and sausage and beef and/or shrimp and lobster. I throw whatever I think goes together really well. A lot of times simmering, like when I make paella, —this isn't quite the shape of the pan, but something like this to make the paella and just let everything steam. Like you'll see today how I finish off the lobster and the shrimp, kind of almost in the same method as I would do for a paella. And this came about because we ordered it out somewhere and I just didn't like it. It was good, but I just— I'm looking at it going, this could be so much better. Yeah. So I decided to play with it a little bit, keep the basis of the dish. Like they don't really put okra in it too much, but my wife likes okra. Uh-huh. I like okra. And you know, they don't— they use andouille, and I use chorizo because I like chorizo. So you know, this is what you have to think about when you're cooking is what you like. You know, don't be afraid to substitute what you like for some ingredients and, you know, make it yours. Make it your specialty. Yeah.

So, so take us— I mean, here we go. Take us through it. And I know I already have my questions. Set for you. So, so tell us how we start this.

Well, first we start by plugging in the induction cooker. Okay. It's always a big help.

That's good.

Which I haven't turned it on today. I did turn it on when I tested the pan to make sure that the pan was magnetic and worked because I didn't want to come showtime and then be—

Yes, I know that just happened to my daughter. She bought some pots since she has an induction. Right away. I love it. Oh, it's amazing.

I'm going to put some oil in here and I'm going to start with some chicken and sausage. I'm just going to bring this over here and I have my flour that I have some salt, sea salt and black pepper in. I always season my flour.

Okay, I have my first question, Chef. Difference between sea salt and kosher salt, why one versus another?

That's a good question. I know with some sea salts, you can get them from all different areas. I don't think kosher— I don't know if kosher is more of a produced salt, where sea salt should be more natural.

Okay. You may be right. You may be right.

I know some of the salts will impart different flavors depending upon the minerals or where they come from. That's why you have different color sea salts, too. You'll have pink sea salt, gray, black. Oh, you know what?

I was just— when I was in Spain in February, there were— I bought— there was a whole gigantic thing of salts, but I'm digressing, so go ahead.

Oh, no, that's fine. Yes, I mean, and they just add different flavors. You know, you're not really going to see them, I don't think, too much, but you know, the big push is on sea salt. You know, even some of the fast food stands are using sea salt, so you know, everybody wants to talk about it. So I cut my chorizo in half. And I'm going to put that in here. And I'm going to brown these because these are going to take a little bit longer to cook and I don't want to steam them. Plus, sautéing them will give them a little bit more flavor. Let me just rinse off here.

Hey, Chef, I have another question. Sure. Now, I recently had, I guess it was tacos, and there was chorizo in it and it was very crumbled. Can you get it out of the casing, crumble it in advance, sauté it in advance, get it all brown and then, rather than slices?

Sure, just like any sausage. You know, like if I was going to make some dirty rice, you know, I might use that in it for my version. My mother actually used to take it out of the wrapper when she would do eggs for me in the morning, and it was, you know, the ground-up chorizo with some flour, not flour, corn tortillas torn up in it. Yes. You know, and it would all cook together, which was a great thing. But, uh, okay, you can do it. And sometimes you can even buy it. I have seen it ground up. I mean, being in Florida, I get to see actually chorizo for real here. We didn't— you know, you couldn't hardly find it up north, although more and more Mexican stores are opening up. But what I did find is now I'm seeing different varieties of chorizo. Oh really? Right, it's chorizo from South America. Uh-huh. Within South America, different varieties depending upon the country. And I'm like, whoa, okay, I just want Mexican chorizo for now, you know. I'll try the other chorizo to see. But I'm thinking, you know, differences in spices. And we did have a question here from Lynn Bloor, and she wants to know where my other camera is for the pan. And it's not on the ceiling, but it's on a boom stand. Right about going over here. So I have it on a boom stand that I just ordered. I wanted to use it for a microphone, but I think it's a little too light for this microphone, but it's great for a camera over top of the induction burner where you can see everything just happening there. And it's a C920, the same camera we use for everything else.

I'm now the founder of I have that too.

I'm the proud owner of 3 C920s now.

Wow, but that's such a beautiful shot. It is such a beautiful shot. You see the steam, you see the, you know, you see the ingredients. It's really lovely, lovely, lovely shot.

Yeah, you get to just have an idea of what we're doing. I'll just keep it on this while I'm starting it, and then we'll switch it back. I'm just going to let it get brown. Okay, so now you're—

yeah, so you're browning the chorizo and the thighs. That's all you have in there right now, is that right? Yeah, that's all I have.

Okay. I'm going to get a plate to put them on when I pull them out. I'm going to cook them most of the way, but they're not going to be completely done. So we're just going to give them a few minutes in here to cook. And guys, if you have any questions, please leave them in the comment section. And we will do our best to get to them. I'm just going to torment everybody and leave this on the food for now so they can see how beautiful everything is.

So now that's a dish that doesn't have— I don't remember the recipe. Do you have onions in that dish? Oh, they're going in. Oh, okay, you do have onions.

Once we pull this meat out, then everything else will start building the rice. Right, right. And I like to do it this way because number one, I'm getting some I'm searing the meats. You know, I think it adds to the flavor. It definitely adds to the appearance. And I'm also going to get a little bit of fat in the pan that I'll help to sauté the stuff with. So, you know, it's flavor building.

So tell me, tell me what will happen later on with— will there be a lot of fat? Will you skim that off? Not really, no.

It's going to be— it'll get absorbed. But no, you saw I put very little olive oil in. Yeah. It'll get absorbed into the whole meal, but you're thinking this is going to be like— this is extra food. I make this a little bit bigger because I'm going to have this for lunch tomorrow, too. Mm-hmm. This will be dinner tonight. Like, we're not going to eat— we'll eat all the seafood, but the chicken and the sausage will make a lunch tomorrow with enough rice that's left over, hopefully, depending upon how we eat tonight because sometimes it's so good that we kind of throw it to the wind and we eat everything. So I made this for Lisa's friends that came to visit. The first question is, do you eat like this every night? Of course we don't. But when we do make something special, it is special.

Now, is this one of those dishes where it's better the next day?

You know, I don't know if it's necessarily better the next day. It's probably a little more flavorful, but I think first time around, there's not that much of a sauce in it, and I think that the proteins are probably better the first day you make them. Mm-hmm. Chicken, you know, fried chicken holds up well, but this kind of a chicken isn't going to quite do too much else, you know. It's not going to improve with age. The rice might be more flavorful, but I'm not going to make terribly that much rice. It will have a lot left over.

Yeah, yeah, good. So we're getting it nice and browned, and that adds flavor too. That adds flavor too.

You know, and that's why I salt and pepper my flour all the time. You know, I said before, you know, it does a couple things. The flour helps protect the meat a little bit. It puts a coating on it. And if you were going to do a pan gravy, it would also help you make the pan gravy. So in this instance, there isn't going to be one. But you can see I'm getting some— oh, I can smell it. I wish you could smell this.

I wish I could too, let me tell you.

I can smell that chorizo cooking and oh my God.

Yeah, I like that. Wonderful. I mean, would you say that's Is it kind of an entertaining dish, kind of a party? Would it be good to be like a, you know, kind of like a casual dinner with people? I mean, I'm almost wondering, it seems to have a casual connotation. I wonder if it's the sort of dish that you can have people come over and give them some tasks to do and—

Oh, sure.

You know, cut the vegetables up or do other things and, you know, in the kitchen, If you plan in advance, you can set up a little table for guests to do. And you know what, I find that that really kind of, you know, cuts the ice and it really, you know, it's a nice atmosphere.

I just showed you that, and I am going to pour just a little bit of this oil off because there is quite a bit of oil. So just excuse me while I get something.

Yeah, that's— isn't that always the question? What do you put the oil in?

I'm actually going to put it in a bowl for Natalie so it cools off. I'm actually going to take about half of it out. There was a lot of fat in that chorizo, so I'm going to take half of it out. So now I've got my pan back in action. I did dump about half of the fat out, so now I'm going to put my onions in. My garlic, my bell pepper, and we're just going to stir this around a little bit.

Now, I mean, the pepper, you know, the pepper always takes a little longer, for example, than the onions, so is there any, I guess, Once it all simmers, it'll get—

Yeah, this is going to be in the pan for a long time. Yeah. So it's not really going to matter that much.

Okay, so it doesn't need to soften up? No, no, I just want to get the other ingredients.

You never want to put it in raw. You want to let it cook a little. I mean, and now it's soaking up a lot of that really nice flavor from the chorizo too, the spices. Mm-hmm. I mean, I can really smell it. I mean, between the garlic and the onions, you know, the juices If you've got people in your room while you're making this, let me tell you, the juice is going to be flowing big time. Yeah, yeah. I've got this in here. Now I'm going to add in my corn because it was a little hard when I took it off the ears. I just want to get a little bit of sauté on it.

Oh, so you took that right off the ears?

Yeah, we have fresh corn in Florida right now.

Uh-huh, wow.

I couldn't find fresh okra, so I had to buy frozen. That's okay. Last time I made it, I was able to get fresh. I might have been able to look around a little more and find some, but you use what you have to use. If you have frozen corn, you can use it. This has got a little bit of softness to it. It's got a little bit of cooked— it's cooked a little bit. Now I'm going to add my rice in. And here's where, you know, I did not throw that fat away. If I needed a little bit more fat, I can add it in now. But this is fine. Everything's coated nicely. Now I'm just going to let this toast just a little bit on the fire. Oh, really? Yeah, and it will give the— it really is going to help the flavor of the rice.

And you know what, Chef Lee, you're putting corn in there. To me, that that clearly makes it more Texas than New Orleans. Absolutely. Yep. So I think you're kind of making a whole new, you know, melting pot, literally a melting pot of regional cooking.

I'm going to put some black pepper in here. Now, I'm not going to add any salt because I'm going to use some chicken stock, and I think there's going to be enough in that. All right. So now, I'm just going to toast it. Anytime I make rice in a pan, if I'm going to use anything else, onions for flavor, I always toast the rice a little bit. I find it cooks a little bit better that way. It could just be, again, this is how I was taught many years ago, and it could just be something that I imagine, but I'm hoping not. So now I'm going to add in my tomatoes.

Now, okay, tell me what kind of tomatoes. Those are? Are those diced or—

These are just diced plum tomatoes. Oh, so they're fresh. Okay, they're fresh tomatoes. These are just going to make the rice a little colorful. It's going to add a little red to it. Yeah. I have my okra. All right.

Now, okra, I mean, okra, Chef, does it really have that much flavor? Or is it more for color? What do you think?

It's got— it doesn't have a lot of flavor. It's got a— it adds a softness to it. Okay. And it also is like a natural binder. It like makes things a little thicker. So it does help with sauces. I used to use this in a lot of different soups, and people would think first there were jalapeños in it. They didn't want to eat it. I said, no, it's okra. It's an acquired taste, but it's not a bad flavor.

Yeah, but you know, that's really helpful because there's a function, you know, more than the flavor. There's really another function to it, so that's very helpful.

Sometimes there are in dishes, and people would say, "Leave this out, leave that out." Well, you know, it's going to not just change the flavor, it's going to change the dish. So, all right, now I'm going to put in some chicken stock.

Oh, I love that sound, sizzling.

And stir it around. I'm going to cover it and I'm going to let it cook for a little while. I'm actually going to put my seasonings in too. I have a little cumin and a little pepper, red chili pepper, or chili.

Yeah, I mean, the red chili pepper, that's certainly more Texan too.

Okay, so there's my flavors right there, my flavor profiles that made it Tex-Mex for me. And you can see my table is clear now except for my cilantro, so we're in business. So this is going to just let it go. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to cover it, I'm going to watch it, and I might turn it down a little if it starts to boil too rapidly. Okay. I'm going to keep my eye on it, and then we're going to come back and we're going to talk.

Okay, good.

So there we go. All right. So we're going to let our— and I do have some seafood for it, but we're going to let it cook a little bit more.

Uh-huh. So Chef, you have a fair amount of vegetables and lots of protein in it. What do you think about side dishes? Do you even need side dishes with that?

No, just a nice salad. Make yourself a nice salad to go with it, and you've got everything you need.

And you know, I was wondering about something else, which again, sometimes my questions are really out there about food, but I don't know, lemon came to mind. Is lemon at all appropriate with this, putting it into this dish as a little flavor? I would use lime.

Ah, okay. Yes. Because we've got those Latin flavors, so I mean, I would use lime, but I mean, you know, it all depends. If you don't have lime, you use lemon. If you want a little bit of that tartness to it, it certainly isn't going to hurt it. And I don't think I would necessarily put it in, but when I serve the dish, yeah, I would serve it to you with it then. And I would do it that way.

I think that's great. I think that's great. And you know, thinking about this whole dish, and guess what we got this weekend? We delivered— we had it delivered this weekend by Amazon. We got a smoker. Ooh, tell me about it. We've never had it before. We've never had one before. My son, who's living with us, he said I, you know, I want a smoker and he likes to cook a lot. So we got the smoker. It's— I don't know how big it is. It's pretty big. It's a 30-inch. It's, I don't know, close to 3 feet tall and it's made by a brand called Majestic Built or something and it's electric and then it has these trays for water and for wood chips and we got all these wood chips. So have you done I was thinking about smoking. What about using for this dish, say, pre-smoking chicken or the chorizo? What about that?

Absolutely. I mean, it would just be adding to the flavors, that's all. You don't have to cook the proteins in here. I could just let the rice go the way it is and just cook your meats elsewhere. I mean, if you want to grill all this stuff, Yeah. Grill it. That's fine. It does not have to be done in the pan. This is going to be a one-pan meal. In my mind, that's always a good thing when you only have one pan to really clean up after yourself. That's right. You don't necessarily have to put everything in little bowls, although it looks pretty when you're making it. I did that when my wife's friends were here. When they went in the house, they all went, "Ooh, what's he going to make?" because I had everything set up. It's all a matter of presentation. It's a matter of taking your meal to another level. Yeah. Enjoying it more. By doing that, you're going to feel better about your meal. You might even want to take a couple Instagram pics of it, which I should have done before I started, to show it. Rather than just throwing everything in one bowl, and it's all going in the same place kind of an attitude. This way it's making you feel more accomplished about what you're doing.

Sure, and you know, I'm going to throw something else very random at you about this dish, and that is, you know, I really like using the Crock-Pot, and what if I sautéed or, you know, we sautéed the proteins or particularly the chicken thighs. So you have a nice crust, you have that brown flavor, and then what if you put it in, in the crock pot for quite a while and say you put, you know, some chicken stock in there, say you even put a few drops of liquid smoke in there, and then you cook that to death so it's, you know, a number of hours, so then it becomes shredded. Would that be okay or not okay?

Yeah, it's going to be more like a traditional jambalaya where the meats— that's what I didn't like about it was all the tiny little pieces of everything. I like my dishes to be a little more rustic. We just had dinner at a really nice Cuban restaurant the other night, and we got this dish, and I had these visions of how I would have made it in my head. When it was brought to me, I went, "Oh." It was very tasty., but some of the meat was a little tough. It just really wasn't— and it was all kind of one flavor kind of a dish. I like the things to have a little bit of their own identity. When you do something in a Crock-Pot, it's great. You can make some great dishes. In fact, I just got a Ninja for Christmas, and you can actually sauté in the Crock-Pot before— I don't know what it is. What's a Ninja? It's a brand of Crock-Pots. Okay. It's a big mother. It's an oblong one. Wow. You can sauté, you can bake in it, and it's got 3 different uses. I've only done pork in it so far, but quite a lot easier than roasting a pork in my oven for 10 hours, let me tell you. It was much, much simpler. Yeah. I will be using my Crock-Pot more, that's for sure. For something like this, some dishes like the rice, it would be fine. You could actually do this to the proteins, cool them, put them in your refrigerator, let your rice and everything cook like it would, come back, and just put them into your Crock-Pot to finish getting warm, like when you get home. The last half hour, an hour, as long as they were pretty much cooked all the way through, then you could just put them in if you didn't want them shredded. If it's shredded, you just mix everything together, like you said, using the ground meat from the chorizo. Just use ground. Let the chicken fall apart and get really nice and tender and delicious. I'm sure it would be great. Instead of liquid smoke, try smoked paprika next time.

Okay. I have that. I have that.

Yeah. If you're going to put a smoke flavor in it, I'd rather have it be almost a more natural Stuff like liquid smoke scares me a little bit sometimes, you know.

Yeah, I usually use that when I do pulled pork. There's a recipe, I think it may be from Paula Deen, that puts liquid smoke in there. Look at this nice simmer now. This is a beautiful simmer, very colorful, and you know, I'm kind of getting inspired. Speaking of color, I mean, I could see dressing the table in, you know, orange, say placemats and/or flowers and real bright colors. I can really see a whole color scheme, you know, surrounded by this dish. How about you?

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And if you've got some tableware, some dishes that would go for it that you have, or even getting some, you know, just for the occasion to use for meals like this would be great. You know, I'm kind of anal about what I serve stuff on, so most of my plates are always white or like cream-colored. These were like a departure for me. There's actually green— I can't lift them too much, but there's green on the bottom of them.

Well, you know, that's actually a good point because then the food is featured. Yes. Say you have light dishes and everything is light, and then say you have a, you know, a nice bouquet of flowers, brightly colored flowers, and then it's sort of a, you know, really a contrast.

Well, you can always put tableware, like dish napkins, you can always put napkins out that are colorful, you can always use the flowers that are colorful, you can get colorful drinking glasses, but you know, the plate kind of sets the stage for what you serve. So I like it to be sort of neutral and big enough too. Well, we were at this restaurant and they piled all this food on this tiny little plate. I'm going, "Oh, yeah." If you had a big enough plate, the presentation would have been so much better.

That's really funny. You're right. The proportion and the balance of the plate to the food is very important. What about drinks? I mean, are margaritas the thing here? What do you think?

Well, you know, with this kind of a dish, I think anything you want to have that's tasty. I mean, a beer would go good with this, a nice craft beer, a glass of sangria would go great with this. Anything that you're going to enjoy drinking with. I mean, pretty much with food, I almost never drink alcohol with food. I'm kind of strange. I like water or a nice— I drink a lot of Pellegrino water, so I'll have a sparkling water with my food. If I'm going to drink, I want it to be either before or after. No, you're right about that.

Yes, I do the same.

Yeah. I mean, even with wines that are supposed to be paired with it, I want to taste just food. My palate is not that refined, unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on which way you want to think about it.

Yeah. Now, I wonder what kind of greens would be good for a salad. I mean, we don't want them to— since this is a rustic dish, maybe romaine lettuce, I mean, rather than, you know, frou-frou soft lettuce. What do you think?

Yeah, I wouldn't use a soft one, but you might want to throw, you know, even a little field mix would be good in here or arugula with that nutty flavor. Oh, just to add a little bit in, you know, and again, remember a salad, unless it's the entrée, the salad is an accompaniment. It does not have to have 12 other ingredients with it. If this is the main dish, the salad is like a palate cleanser. There was a comedian, unfortunately, just passed away. I'm trying to remember his name. He thought of salad not as real food, he goes, but a promise of things to come. There you go. He goes, if you just try to feed him just He says he wasn't happy, but a salad was a promise of better food to come. It doesn't have to be this— don't get me wrong, I like a salad with a bunch of nuts, and with fruit, and with good cheese in it, and olives, and all different things, too. If I'm having a dish like this, then it's going to be a simple salad to go with it and accompany it. Actually, I might serve it after the meal, like Europeans style.

I was going to mention that.

Yeah, maybe I wouldn't serve it before, I would probably serve it after.

Yeah, do you want to go through while that's simmering, go through a few comments? Sure.

Okay, I'm gonna start building this while this is going too. I'm gonna put my chicken back in.

Okay, now what, tell me why this This timing to put the chicken back, how do you know?

I want everything to finish in time. I don't want the rice to be too overcooked. So I'm going to put the lobster and the chicken.

Let me go back to this camera. Now when you say overcooked, do you want it to be a little bit moist?

Oh, I want this— I want the chicken to be very moist. The rice shouldn't be too, too moist, but we'll see how it comes out. So I'm just going to put everything back in, close it back up.

Look at those juices, Anthos juices. Beautiful juices, wow, what a shot.

Alright, so we've got everything in there and the seafood will steam. Seafood doesn't take that long. To make to cook. So the lobster is split and they're only 4-ounce tails, so they won't take long. And the shrimp are still in their shells. Mm-hmm. That'll be nice, and we'll have some action to do while we're eating. We'll be able to peel shrimp. Yeah, it's nice to give somebody something to do when you eat every now and then.

So also, they're, they're all unpeeled?

The shrimp are all unpeeled. Okay, you know, they're protected a little bit more, and they'll just cook right in here. So if I'm gonna have in here a little bit longer than need be, I like to cook them that way.

But you know what, Chef, I would imagine the flavor is enhanced with the shells on. Absolutely. That's what I'm thinking.

I mean, I have the lobster shells in here as well, so you'll get some flavor. Oh. You're not going to get a ton of it, but you're going to get some flavor from it. Sure. Let's go to the comments. Let's look at a couple of comments.

We have Aslan Flor. Susan Sarah, the term kosher salt refers to the fact that the salt was used to remove all traces of blood from kosher meat. It is pretty much table salt with or without anti-caking agents. Interesting. Very interesting. So there's a historical— there's definitely historical reference to how kosher salt is, you know, is used and the purpose behind it. Love to hear these, you know, you learn something from that. And let's see, Maggie says, "Huerito and eggs, one of my favorite Mexican breakfasts." Absolutely.

And, you know, and the corn tortillas, my mother would tear them up and throw them in there, and they would just blend with them so nicely. You know, she'd have onions and peppers and some tomatoes too. To me, I had no idea what— I'd go out and I'd see huevos rancheros and I always thought that's what she was making. I don't know if she ever called it that, but that was my perception of it and very disappointed when I got the other version of it.

Yeah, but you know what, I mean, that's where we're so lucky to, you know, have these amazing regional cuisines and then blending a few cuisines together. And, you know, go to Texas and you have one type of jambalaya, and go to New Orleans and another. And I could have wonderful, you know, Jewish food in Manhattan, an hour away from me. And it's just— we're very, we're very blessed to be able to have all these regional foods. Absolutely. And Aslan Blore says, where's the secondary camera? On the ceiling? Yeah, we talked about that earlier.

That's the one on the boom stand.

Okay, okay, got that. So yeah, I think we're, you know, our guests are really loving the, you know, they're loving what you're doing, what you're cooking. And look at this shot. Now that the lobster, it's colored now.

Now it's really bright red. The tails are turning color, so it's going to look pretty on the plate as well. So, you know, that's another part, a whole part of the dish is the appearance of it.

Okay, then I'm thinking, I'm definitely thinking orange flowers, maybe orange placemats, maybe some greens, but casual, definitely casual flowers, and, you know, white plates, and imagine what a wonderful table that could be, and you can even do a sort of mixture between formal and rustic. You can have a white tablecloth and you can have rustic pieces to it. Absolutely. Looking good.

Yeah, I would actually think about putting the flowers in a pitcher. There you go. A lot of times we put— we have some really cute pitchers that we have, and they'll go from either having sangria or flowers in them depending upon, you know, what we want to do with them, or lemonade, you know, fresh lemonade.

So, and you know what, sometimes I just go in my backyard and I'll take greens I'll take greens that have recently fallen, or Thanksgiving, I have so much ivy, and I cut a lot of ivy, and I put it all around the dining room. So a lot of what you have is right in your backyard.

Absolutely.

For a rustic feeling. Oh, look at that. I'm coming over. I'm catching the next plane.

You are more than welcome.

I am. And now what about bread? I mean, you have the rice, but would you serve— would you serve a rustic bread with this as well?

What do you think? Absolutely. You know, bread never hurts a meal, that's for sure. I would serve something maybe to sop up some of the juices with. Yeah. I'm just— the seafood is a little done, and I don't want it to overcook, so I'm taking it out. Okay. And don't be afraid to pull things out when you think they're done.

Well, now you kind of— you also have the flavor of the seafood that can still mix with everything else. This is just about ready.

This has a little bit of liquid left to cook.

Mm-hmm. Now that looks like, that looks to me like you're serving a good 6 people with that.

What do you think? You would think. Until you start eating it. This is good for 4 people. I mean, you would each get a lobster, you'd each get a couple shrimp. When I made it for her friends, I gave them each a whole tail and 2 shrimp and a couple pieces of chicken and the sausage. The rice is what gets devoured. I would not normally think to make that much rice, but it's so flavorful that you just can't stop eating it.

Isn't it true? I have to say, the carbs are the first thing on the dish I go for. I will be perfectly honest. That's what I go for. They're usually very special. Like you say, here with the rice and the flavors, I would go for the rice first.

Yeah, the rice is excellent, too. If you get a crappy carb as a side dish or part of it, it can ruin a meal.

That's disappointing.

It's tragic. It is. It's really— Yeah, and people— or you don't get enough of it. Sometimes people don't realize what they're serving. When I would serve pasta, I would serve a whole heck of a lot of pasta with a dish. Not if it was just something that was sauced. If it was something that was just part of the under part of a meal, that's different. You never skimp on something that's that inexpensive. That someone's gonna walk away feeling— the worst feeling in the world is to leave a meal and go, "I'm still hungry." Yeah, no, you're right.

I mean, why struggle? Let's see, should I do half a pound, three-quarters? I'm not sure which one. Just put it—

I mean, pasta's so cheap, and there's always other things you can do with it, too.

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Good. Getting there.

Just turned it down a little bit. You just want to watch to make sure it's not sticking. Everything's pretty much done now. I mean, if I was— I would probably turn this off at this point, and I think I will. And I would just kind of let it simmer and, uh, let it absorb the the rest of the liquid that way. Okay. That's more than likely how I would work it. Say, like right now, I'd start getting the table ready, getting all the dishes and everything that I'll need. Right.

Now, will you serve— you won't serve it in that— you'll serve it in a big sort of paella type of dish?

I have this dish. I don't have an oval. I have to pick up a good oval. I had so many really nice pieces before we left, and, you know, I didn't think they'd match. They were all part of a set, an Italian set I had gotten. Dishes had all broken, or too many of them, but I had all the serving pieces, and they were gorgeous stoneware. And I used to serve just about everything, you know, from crabs to big dishes like this, or big pasta dishes. Because you want to present them, you want them to look appetizing. This is big enough that I could serve 4 from it and put it in the middle of the table and people could, you know, help themselves easily enough from it. So we're going to build it on this as soon as it's ready.

Yeah, I think that, you know, you're right about the presentation. And you know what I could also envision? I had I have a few Le Creuset dishes that are— mine are white, but you know, they have the beautiful flame red ones and other colors. I mean, you don't even have to put it onto a dish. You could just take— Casserole. That's okay. Yeah.

I have some nice casseroles, too, and that's absolutely right, or some of the ones that you cook in, the regular pots. I mean, take this dish, just line it up in the pot, put something, a hot plate on the table, and then just rearrange everything so it looks pretty. That's all.

Do you know that Le Creuset type of— it's almost like a buffet. It's round, it's very, very flat, it's only a few inches tall, and it's quite wide, and you can cook with that on the stovetop, and it's a beautiful presentation. Maybe that would be— would work well. Oh, there's—

there's— it's very low. You can do— I'm just going to try and get some of this rice.

Oh my goodness. Look at that. Look at that color. And you know, I would imagine, Chef, you know, does it have to be that drier consistency? I mean, that doesn't look so dry. Oh, mine— Yeah, but I mean, that looks It looks good to me.

This is not real dry. This is kind of a wet rice. I mean, I honestly, I would have let it sit a little bit longer. Yeah, no, I understand that.

But I mean, how dry do you want it to be? Do you want it to be the typical drier rice or have a lot of moisture to it?

I like having some moisture to it.

I do. I do. I mean, that's, you know, comfort food. It's almost risotto-like in that respect.

I just set it up. And again, have fun with it.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, what else do you need? You don't need so much else with that dish.

Oh no, not at all. And again, this recipe, I have the recipe there, but if you think it's If it's too much, cut it down and make it what you want it to be.

And it doesn't take that long. Oh, no. It really doesn't. And I love— one of my favorites are one-dish recipes because they're just easy. And like you're saying, you don't need many sides and one dish has everything. It's also the way to go during the week. Whether I think I can see that for during the weekend for entertaining. Oh, absolutely.

And I have my rice for tomorrow, probably a little bit. And you know, if I have any left, it's gonna make a wonderful soup. Any of this rice I might have left.

Uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah. And you know, tell me what other than the corn, other than the corn and the cumin, chili, and the chili, what would be the difference between the more traditional New Orleans jambalaya? They wouldn't put lobster in it.

They might have crayfish in it.

Okay, but otherwise it's very similar, right? Yep, yep.

Where am I going? Oh, look at that.

Look at that.

Trying to adjust the camera so we've got a better shot of it.

Good. No, the other way. Yeah, and then move— you could move it right there. Yeah, actually the other way toward you. Yeah, toward you a little bit. There you go. And I wouldn't— Whoa, perfect. Perfect. And I wonder if you kind of bang the plate a little bit, if it would show in the full screen. Beautiful. Look at those colors. All right. Look at those colors.

Good job. Take a picture of that too. Yeah.

Capture on. That just looks delicious.

Well, it didn't help. Why did I lose my plate now?

I think you took a picture of yourself in the colors of the jambalaya. Oh well, you guys saw it.

I'll take a picture of it with my camera though before we're done and make sure that everybody gets to see it again. So that's my version of jambalaya. Tex-Mex version.

I think that— oh yeah, there we go. That is— that's just beautiful. Very beautiful. And you know what, you did it so effortlessly.

You really did. Oh, absolutely. It's really about having fun with it. It's not about, you know, being crazy in the kitchen. I got quite a few ingredients in here as opposed to something I would normally make, but it really wasn't that difficult. I mean, you saw how easy it was really to make. Yeah. And it's gorgeous. It really is gorgeous.

It is very inspiring.

And I'm hungry, and I see lobster and sausage and shrimp, and I gotta try some of this rice. As a matter of fact, I have to taste this. Oh yeah.

It's just that mustardy color too. Ah, man.

I got the okra, got a little softness. Mm-hmm. The okra, it's not over-seasoned, it's not too spicy, it's not too hot. It's flavorful.

Yeah, I mean the salt is tricky, how much salt to add.

I don't like I just use chicken stock. Okay. You know, a little black pepper, put some sea salt on the chicken, and that was all it needed. The other spices are carrying it. Not too much cumin, you know, cumin, right? Well, everywhere else calls it cumin, and my grandmother always referred to it as cumin. Oh, really? I always—

I've always called it cumin.

Yeah, that's the rest of the world, but in Mexico it's cumin. Just a little bit of that to give it that little balance of flavor. A little bit of the red chili, light chili powder, just to give it a little bit of heat and flavor. You don't want to make it so hot that you can't eat it. You want it to be very flavorful so you want to keep eating it. That's my dish. I just finish it up with a little cilantro. I don't add it in before because it will get dark and it will get ugly. This way you're still going to get the flavor and it's going to look pretty.

Yeah, a little bright, fresh flavor. Beautiful dish, Chef. Thank you very much.

Thank you all for coming today. We had a great time and I hope you stop by and see us again next week for Around the Kitchen Table.

See you next time. Bye-bye. Bye.