Makes 5 servings
- 12 oz button mushrooms, roughly quartered
- approximately 3 Tablespoons corn oil
- 6 oz onions, chopped
- 2 medium bell peppers (about 10 oz total), chopped
- ½ lb celery, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 1 Tablespoon Cajun spice
- 1 Tablespoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1½ cups (about 8 oz) smokehouse almonds
- 2 teaspoons Tamari sauce
- 2 cups converted rice
- 5 cups low sodium vegetable broth
- 15 oz can caliente-style kidney beans
- 1 lb tomatoes, chopped (canned ok)
Special equipment
- none
Method
- As with our other Jambalayas, this dish is assembled quickly, so it’s important to have your ingredients prepared. Makes sure all your vegetables are properly chopped and ready to go. Mushrooms in one bowl; onions, bell pepper, celery, and garlic in another, and the dry spices can be reserved in a third.
Over medium high heat, brown the mushrooms in 2 Tablespoons of the corn oil for about 8 minutes, stirring often to prevent burning. Cook them until all their juices have boiled away, and they begin to brown.
Add onions, celery, bell pepper, garlic, and another Tablespoon of corn oil. Keep stirring until the onions have begun to sweat, then add the rice and toss to coat each grain with some grease to prevent the grains from sticking. Stir in spices, almonds, and Tamari.
Add broth, tomatoes and beans, and bring to a boil. If you cover the pot, it will quicken the process, but you’ll want to open it up, check on it, and stir occasionally. Once it has come to a boil, reduce the heat to the minimum to keep it simmering, then cook for 15 minutes. Pull it off the heat, and let the residual heat keep steaming the rice for 5-8 minutes.
Stir and test the rice. If it needs a few more minutes, let it sit; else serve immediately.
Notes
- Blue Diamond brand smokehouse almonds are wonderfully gluten-free and vegan. Our brand of Tamari is likewise gluten-free (standard soy sauce is not). We worried that the almonds would soften in the heating of the dish, but one of the features our testers particularly liked was the crunchiness they added even when the dish was prepared ahead of time and reheated onsite.
The observant will notice that this Jambalaya takes more broth than our others. That’s probably because the almonds are absorbing some liquid, and there are no meat juices sweating into the dish.
Suggestions
- We were expecting the dish to be bland with plain rice and were prepared to substitute smoked basmati. Our testers disagreed: converted rice is fine for this dish, so save the smoked basmati for something really special.