Shrimp Pasta Jambalaya

So I made something at home for the first time (made it plenty of times at the restaurant) that Ann asked me to make again: a pasta jambalaya, a riff on a traditional dish from South Louisiana.

Jambalaya, a rice dish with similarities to jollof rice from Africa and paella from Spain, is near and dear to my heart. I've made countless jambalayas of many stripes over the past five decades and am so comfortable making it that I have felt free for many, many years to adopt the idea and the technique as I have seen fit. In particular, in the past 20 years or so, I have adapted the technique used traditionally for rice to a newer version using Israeli couscous, a dish I call pasta jambalaya.

Shrimp Pasta Jambalaya with Israeli Couscous

Traditional jambalaya has evolved into two different but equal schools as have many Louisiana dishes: Creole and Cajun. The Creole version, essentially city cooking for the relatively richer people living in and around New Orleans, is tomato-based. The Cajun version, country cooking for the relatively poorer people from the bayous, tends to be roux-based. One is red, the other brown.

My heart lies in the simpler country cooking of the bayous and so my jambalaya almost never contains tomatoes, though in my early days learning the idioms of the Louisiana canon, I certainly made my share of all the classic Creole dishes. In extending my Cajun jambalaya to pasta, I make it with and without roux. Roux is essentially a thickener which is not necessary when cooking pasta in this fashion. The pasta will thicken the jambalaya without any assistance. Where roux makes a difference, however, is that inimitable flavor of flour highly browned in duck fat or lard. I did not use roux for this particular jambalaya because I was in a hurry and roux cannot be hurried.

The following photos illustrate the technique for making pasta jambalaya. It is not by accident that this is identical to making risotto. I make the two dishes in the same manner on the stovetop, just like paella. If I were making it in the traditional manner with rice, once I put the rice in the liquid, I would put the whole thing in the oven to finish à la arroz con pollo.

In the pan below, I have my trinity (onions, peppers, and celery) along with a little ham and garlic. My trinity is yellow onion, celery, poblano pepper, and in this case because I had a bunch of bottoms of green onions in the refrigerator needing to be eaten, sliced green onions. I use poblano peppers exclusively rather than Bell peppers that are used traditionally, merely because I don't really care for the flavor of Bell peppers. I contend that if the early Louisiana settlers had poblanos as an option, the cuisine would be based on them rather than Bell peppers.

I used a little cured ham in this, your basic supermarket ham steak. I would have preferred either tasso (spiced and smoked pork shoulder) or andouille (spiced pork shoulder cubes in a casing, smoked), easily available to the restaurant trade, but hard to find outside Louisiana in small quantities for home use. The smoked paprika in my house-made spice mix aka Magic Dust helps add some of the missing smoke flavor.

Trinity, Garlic, and Ham

Cook Until Onions are Translucent

A key part of any Cajun dish is the spice mix. Although pre-prepared spice mixes are now ubiquitous thanks to Chef Paul Prudhomme, I don't use any commercial mix, preferring the base recipe that I developed over many years at the restaurant. In addition to a lot of spice mix in the pan below, I also added a good sprinkle of filé powder (ground sassafras leaves). Although filé in jambalaya is probably heretical, I like the flavor.

Add Spice Mix and Cook for Another Minute

Add the Israeli Couscous (or Rice) and Stir Well

You can use whatever liquid you like in making this dish. If I had some shrimp stock, I would have used that. Chicken or vegetable stock would work great as well. I had neither, so I used water.

Add Liquid to Cover, Reduce Flame, Stir to Keep from Sticking

Add Liquid by Dribbles Until the Dish is Thick and Cooked

Once the pasta was nearly cooked and the liquid nearly evaporated (about three minutes before I thought the dish was done), I added a pound of medium peeled and deveined shrimp and stirred them until they just turned pink. As you can see in the very first photo, I think a sprinkle of grated pecorino works well on this dish, the old saw about "no cheese with seafood" be damned.