Jambalaya

For the UFC fights the other night we had to feed a crowd. Not a much easier way to do that than good old Jambalaya. One nice easy dish, all made on the Weber Kettle with basically no dishes when the hungover goes away the next day! Not much more you can ask for! This one is inspired by John Besh and his cook book My New Orleans (We did change a fair bit of it so don't take this as the same recipe completly, oh and by the book it's awesome!). Really really tasty stuff, went over really well with all the folks who stopped by!

You'll need:
Pound of bacon
1.5 Pounds of chorizo
1 Pound fresh pork sausage
1/4 Cup lard (see the lard post we have on here under pork for how to make your own...)
1 Whole chicken
3 Large Onions
2 Red Peppers
5 Stalks Celery
1 Tablespoon Garlic Powder
3 Cups Rice
1 Teaspoon Thyme
1 Bay Leaf
3 Tablespoons Hot Sauce
1 Teaspoon Cayenne
1 Tablespoon Celery Seed
3 Cups Strained Tomatoes
2 Liters Chicken Stock
1.5 Pounds Shrimp
1 Pound Scallops
1 Bunch of green onions

We started by frying up some of the cardamom bacon that we cured and smoked last week. The smell in the kitchen was ridiculously amazing. In the mean time we tossed an unseasoned chicken (no need to season it since the skin and carcus will be used for stock while the meat will be pulled and added to the plenty flavorful broth). Along with some basic breakfast sausage and hot italian sausage that we made a while ago on to the grill at about 425 (Chorizo is better than the Italian for this but we ran out of ours a while ago).
The sausage and bacon is all done and chopped up to be used soon.....

The chicken joins the sausage and the bacon for a little rest before being pulled. Notice the bowls in the background prepped for latter, one is the onions, red peppers, and celery, the other is the prawns, scallops, and green onions, there is a third one not in the picture with the rice and the spices. It is worth the 10 minutes to prep all this to make it a super relaxing cook.
Time for the wok, replaced the grill with it.....tossed a little lard in it and then the peppers, celery, and onions
Once the vegetables are pretty much done toss in the sausages and bacon

Now time for the rice, hot sauce (we used a homemade hot red chile sauce), celery seed, garlic, and bay leaves, we fried it for a couple of minutes before adding in the liquids.

Now for the liquids, strained tomatoes and chicken stock. Let it go on a slow boil until most of the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender but still has a bit of a bite to it. Just taste it from time to time to see when it is done, you can add more stock if you need.

Now it's time to stir in the prawns, shrimp and green onions (diced fairly small). Only let this cook for a minute or so and then let it all rest off heat for about 5 or 10 minutes and the seafood will be cooked perfectly (leave it on the heat much longer and the seafood will over cook really fast)And we're all done!
We served this with a nice light spinach salad with grapefruit and avocado topped with a red wine and basalmic vinagerette.