1001 Easy Jambalaya ( Cajun / Creole One pot meal)

 Jambalaya :

Jambalaya is a one pot meal with rice, meat and vegetables. It is the Cajun / Creole adaptation of the Spanish Paella. Replace the seafood in Spanish paella with meats and it starts resembling Jambalaya.

Cajuns & Creoles :  
Acadia, (a region in Eastern Canada) was a part of the French colonial empire in the 1700’s. Under a treaty, the French ceded it to the English. The Acadians refused to swear loyalty to the English and were evicted under the Great Expulsion. Many eventually settled inLouisiana, a former French colony. Louisiana already had a large native French speaking population, a large number of them being the second born sons of aristocrats seeking adventure and fortune in the New World, later came to be called  Creoles. Louisiana in turn was ceded by French to Spain. The Acadians morphed under the Spanish and Creole influence and became a distinct ethnic group - the Cajuns. Bell pepper, onion, and celery are added to almost everything and are called the holy trinity of Cajun cuisine. Parsley, bay leaf, spring onions and dried cayenne pepper are common Cajun flavourings. The Cajun refugees, forced to live off the land, rebuilt their cuisine around locally available rice, vegetables, crawfish and game meat – setting  “a table in the wilderness” Cajun meals are simple - rice, skillet cooked cornbread vegetables, game meat / seafood. Creole cuisine is more elaborate with its European influenced recipes and French sauces The Creole version of Jambalaya uses tomatoes and Cajun versions do not. 

With the intermingling of so many  cultures, Lousiana cuisine has given rise to a delightful array of unique dishes like Jambalaya, Gumbo ( thick stew , usually with Okra) and eTouffee ( Seafood stew, served with rice).

As with 1001 one page cookbooks, 10 different bases are combined with 10 flavouring agents and ten additives to create a thousand easy Jambalaya recipes, numbered from 000 to 999. 

The bases
 A variety of meats as listed in column 1 are used as a base.

The flavouring
Celery, onion and bell peppers form the basic flavouring. A variety of other flavouring listed in column 2 can also be used.

The additives
Almost any vegetable as listed in column 3  can be used .