Kwame Onwuachi's stupendous jambalaya
Can't get to New York to experience the restaurant everyone's talking about? Treat yourself to a Creole classic from the chef's cookbook.
Happy Friday, jubilant cook!
Since visiting New Orleans a few weeks ago, I’ve had Creole cooking on the brain. That’s why I finally dove into My America: Recipes from a Young Black Chef, by Kwame Onwuachi. The author — one of the most talked-about chefs of his generation — has been thrilling diners at Tatiana, his restaurant in New York City’s Lincoln Center. There he features flavors from Nigeria (where his father grew up, and where Kwame lived in his youth), Louisiana (where his mother’s from and where he first self-actualized as a cook), the Caribbean, and all over the African diaspora. Last year, Tatiana earned the number one spot on New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells’ list of the 100 best restaurants in the city.
There’s so much in My America that looks wonderful — the Baigan Choka that’s on the cover (it’s a charred vegetable salad from Trinidad and Tobago); Jamaican Stew Peas (with ham hock, pig tails and dumplings) and Senegalese Chicken Yassa.
Alas, most of the recipes that caught my eye involve two or three (or more) sub-recipes, many of which we’re asked to cook in quantities that might make sense for a restaurant, but do not for a home cook. I’d really like to make his Egusi Stew with Goat, but can’t see stemming and chopping 50 red Scotch bonnets to produce a quart of Peppa Sauce in order to use 1 teaspoon in the stew.
Onwuachi’s Jambalaya involves sub-recipes as well — four of ‘em. But I was determined to adapt it workably for you and moi. The dish “sits at the heart of Creole cuisine” and holds deep meaning for the chef, who grew up eating his mom’s jambalaya (she was a caterer, daughter of a chef, now a private chef). Also, the dish is based on rice. It has much in common with Nigerian jollof — another one-pot rice dish Onwuachi also grew up with. He writes:
“Jambalaya, however, hails from Louisiana, where many Africans worked the rice fields the two continents shared. They brought with them not just the knowledge of how to grow but also how to prepare rice. Once in Louisiana, proto-jollof incorporated whatever proteins were available: andouille sausage, abundant shrimp from coastal waters, and chicken, another economical choice. Also added were influences of from the Spanish settlers who yearned for the paella of their home; and the French, the masters of roux.”
My way around all of the super-involved sub-recipes: I created a few short-cuts, did a bunch of math and drastically scaled down his recipe for House Spice.
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