Jambalaya on a Stick
Spicy pork sausage, sweet shrimp and chunks of succulent chicken all wrapped up in a zippy tomato-based sauce and served over rice. Take the traditional jambalaya out of the pot and onto the grill. This recipe is fast, easy and pretty low fat. There is some fat in the sausages but each person only gets half a sausage. Recipe makes four servings.
2 cooked Andouille sausages or any spicy sausage, cut into four pieces each.
16 shrimp – the 13 to 15 per lb. size
2 chicken breasts cut into 1 inch cubes.
1 cup tomato juice combined with 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, 1 to 3 tsp. red pepper flakes, 1 tbsp. each dried thyme, black pepper, dried onions and three minced garlic cloves. Divide into three zip lock bags. Add each meat to a separate bag. Marinate for two hours.
Slice one red and one green pepper into eight equal sized chunks. Slice two small onions into eight equal sized chunks. Put in the bag with the Andouille sausage. It’s cooked so you won’t be contaminating the raw vegetables.
Thread the vegetables, chicken, sausage and shrimp onto skewers. Baste with the marinade from the sausage and veggie bag while they’re grilling. Discard the marinade from the shrimp and chicken. Chicken should be grilled until no traces of pink remain. The shrimp is cooked when the shell turns bright pink and the flesh is no longer translucent. If you use the 12 to 15 per lb. shrimp and 1 inch chunks of chicken they should both be cooked and ready at the same time.
If you don’t want to use skewers, grill the chicken breasts and sausages whole and the shrimp in a fish basket. Keep the shells on the shrimp to keep them moist. The shrimp will cook faster than the chicken so put it on when the chicken is about 10 minutes away from being done. Cut each sausage and chicken breast in half. Each person gets four shrimp, half a sausage and half a chicken breast.
Serve over seasoned white rice. Add chopped scallions, parsley, salt, pepper and butter to hot cooked rice. Finish the meal with a crisp green salad to offset the heat from the Jambalaya.
Jambalaya on a stick makes great little appetizers. Remove from the skewers after they’ve been grilled. Cut the chicken and sausage chunks in half. Serve a shrimp, chicken chunk and sausage threaded on a smaller skewer.