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Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya
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Ingredients:
1 package chicken thighs (6 count)
1/2 package Hillshire Farms Polish Kielbasa (or other smoked sausage), sliced
1/2 bell pepper, chopped
5 stalks celery, chopped
3 large white onions, chopped (DO NOT use a food processor)
2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1/4 cup peanut oil
2 cups white rice (regular white rice. NOT Minute rice!!!)
2 1/2 cups water
1 12oz beer (Budweiser works fine)
flour to coat chicken
1 1/2 teaspoons Rosemary
1 teaspoon Thyme
A handful of chopped parsley (hard to put too much)
Salt to taste
Lots of cayenne pepper
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Cooking Directions:
Start off by washing the chicken and placing it skin side
down on a plate (you can remove the skin if you want). Now,
depending on how spicy you want it, coat the chicken with
Cayenne pepper until very red (I use a LOT of Cayenne in
mine). Don't worry about getting it too hot, since this is
the majority of the pepper you are going to add and it will cook
into the rest of the dish. Turn the chicken pieces over and
lightly coat the skin side. Let sit for 15 minutes or so to
soak it all up.
Heat the oil in the bottom of a large heavy cast iron or
aluminum pot (don't use thin aluminum or stainless steel since
the rice will tend to stick and burn if you're not really careful).
Place the flour in a paper bag (season the flour lightly with salt, cayenne
pepper, black pepper, garlic powder, etc). Place a couple of pieces
of chicken at a time into the bag and shake to coat.
Fry the chicken in the oil until golden brown. Don't worry about
cooking it all the way through just yet. Remove the chicken.
Now place the onions, celery, garlic and bellpepper into the pot
(along with a bit more oil if necessary) and saute them until the
onions are transparent, scraping the bottom of the pot often. Add
the rosemary, thyme and parsley and cook for a minute or so.
Place the sausage slices, chicken, and a little water into the pot
and mix well with the vegetables. Turn heat low, cover and simmer for
about 30 minutes (until the chicken is tender). Stir the mixture frequently,
always scraping the bottom to keep things from burning (break the
chicken up a bit with the spatula as it cooks. It should break up
naturally as the dish cooks, but this just helps things a little).
When the chicken is cooked, add the washed rice and stir it into
everything for a couple of minutes. Pour the warm beer and
the water in and stir things for another minute or so.
Taste it at this point and adjust the salt if necessary.
Now, keeping the heat low, cover the pot and cook until the rice
is tender (anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour). Stir the
mixture every now and then, scraping the bottom of the pot.
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