Duck and Sausage Jambalaya
Josh here today with one of our favorite recipes, jambalaya! This is a rice-based Creole dish with Spanish origins (a younger cousin of paella), a signature recipe in New Orleans and along the American gulf coast.I grew up just outside New Orleans so the cuisine of the city has always stayed with me. In fact, I introduced Leah to red beans and rice after we married in 2005.
What’s special about today’s recipe is we used duck meat. And not just any duck meat–I keep a small flock of ducks and we process the young drakes once or twice a year, and I can tell you true farm-raised duck is no comparison to factory-raised duck meat. In fact, the first time I tried duck was on a cruise during our honeymoon, and it was simply just not any good–greasy, fatty, and the meat had not-nice aftertaste. I couldn’t believe the difference when we first roasted one of our ducks.
We had a lot of fun making this dish and filming this video and really hope you’ll give this simple recipe a go.
Click here to watch how we prepare our jambalaya and get the full recipe.
Let’s go cook!
Josh Day
Oh lordy lordy, how did James get so old??? Anyway, so am I understanding correctly that we don't need to drain any of the bacon grease ('juice' sounds so much better 😉 before adding the next ingredients? I'm totally on board with that, but would probably only cook it every couple of months–which is apropos for a special dish. Also, how do you feel about adding shrimp or crawdads (crayfish) to the recipe? Would it be worth the extra cost?
I know! He's about to turn 9 and my head is spinning. On the bacon juice, if it looks like way more than 3 tablespoons then you can drain some out, but really it's designed to cook with that as the oil to stop the rice and meat from sticking to the pan. We've added both shrimp and crawdads to this recipe and both are great! I prefer sausage and crawdads as the best combo, but the duck is excellent too.
All those combos sound wonderful. I do bet that duck is delicious. Thanks so much!