No. 1872

Jambalaia of Chicken

Jambalaia de Poulet

Cook a quarter of a pound of rice the same as explained below, having the grains swollen but not broken and keep it dry at the oven door. Cut three ounces of cooked lean ham in three-eighths inch dice, also six ounces of cooked chicken meat, suppressing all bones and skin and having them one size. Warm the ham in a saute-pan with butter, add to it the pieces of chicken to heat while tossing, season and sprinkle over lightly with prepared red pepper (No. 168), then put in the well drained rice, toss it with the meats and pour the whole into a vegetable dish.

Indian Rice, which is generally served as a garnishing for chicken or veal is prepared with Indian rice, it having long, white and very perfect grains; plunge a sufficiency of this into a liberal supply of boiling water, after it has been washed and picked, and as soon as it ceases to crack between the teeth, drain it on a colander; wash it in tepid salted water, spread it on a large sieve covered with a white cloth and dry for a few moments at the oven door or else in a hot steamer. Dress on a vegetable dish, cover over and serve. This is the most simple and effectual method.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A small dish built from cooked leftovers, closer to a French sauté than to the wet, tomato-and-stock jambalayas familiar today. Everything hinges on the rice being fully drained and dry before it meets the meat.

Scale and yieldA quarter pound of raw rice is about 113 g, a scant two-thirds of a cup, yielding something close to two cups cooked. With three ounces of ham and six of chicken this serves two as a light course, or four as a garnish alongside something else.
"Prepared red pepper" (No. 168)Ranhofer sends you to a separate numbered preparation, not reproduced here; it is a red-pepper (cayenne) preparation rather than a bottled sauce. Plain cayenne, used lightly, is a reasonable stand-in.
"Indian rice" is not wild riceThe description — long, white, very perfect grains — rules out Zizania. He most likely means an East Indian long-grain type, of the sort a nineteenth-century kitchen might have called Patna. Basmati or any good long-grain works.
The boil-and-rinse methodRice is cooked in abundant boiling water like pasta, drained, rinsed, then dried. This washes off surface starch so the grains stay separate when tossed with the meats. Do not substitute an absorption-cooked pot of rice unless you rinse and cool it first.
"Dry at the oven door"On a coal range the cracked oven door gave gentle radiant warmth; the book gives no temperature. Use the lowest oven setting, or spread the rice on a sheet pan and let it air-dry twenty minutes; a hot steamer, as he also suggests, works but risks re-wetting.
"Ceases to crack between the teeth"His doneness test is the absence of a hard, chalky core, not softness. Expect 10-12 minutes for long-grain rice; taste from eight minutes on.
Uniform diceThree-eighths of an inch, ham and chicken cut to the same size, is not fussiness — it lets the pieces warm at the same rate.
Reheating onlyBoth meats go in already cooked. The pan work is a brief toss in butter to warm them through and coat the rice; a minute or two is enough, and prolonged frying will dry the chicken out.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, compiled The Epicurean (1894) as an encyclopedia of what a great American French kitchen could produce, and Creole Louisiana dishes appear in it filtered through Parisian technique — hence a jambalaya rendered as a sauté of diced meats folded into dry-boiled rice, with no tomato, no stock and no long simmer. Printed jambalaya recipes begin appearing in American cookbooks in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the Gulf City Cook Book of 1878 being among the earliest; the name is generally traced to the Provençal jambalaia, a word for a mixed rice dish, though the connection is traditional rather than firmly documented. The entry is also a period lesson in rice cookery: instruction of the 1890s tended to direct American cooks to boil rice in plenty of water, rinse it and dry it, precisely to get the loose separate grains that Ranhofer insists on here.