Jambalaya with instant rice?

Your idea of using Cachere's will probably work just fine. I'd add a teensy bit of dehydrated tomato paste, too (although there's a debate in Southern cooking about the use of tomato, but that's another subject).

Rice, chicken broth, tomato, sausage, Cachere's… seriously, how bad could that be?????? :^)

Don't you need to add a few drops of olive oil to try to reconstitute the slimy texture?

–B.G.–

"If I could figure out the ratio of dried regular rice to instant rice maybe I could then proportionately reduce the ratios of the seasoning to match up"

Not sure if this might help. I'm not %100 sure how instant rice is made, but I recently dehydrated cooked rice for "instant" re-hydration with boiling water, and I would say by volume it was pretty much 1 to 1 in the dry form. Same can be said for pasta. In both cases the shape changed a tiny bit, but not the volume. Also the appearance changed a little bit, especially int the pasta case, where I would say the dehydrated cooked pasta just looked a little more translucent. But in both case if you look at it from a few feet away the "instant" rice and the regular uncooked looked the same. You could then, under that principle, use a mix if the spices are separate from the rice and just sub in the instant for the regular rice 1 to 1. I think mixes like Zatarain's usually have the spice mixed in with the rice though.

For sure the 20 minute boiling time is for cooking the rice, not for re-hydration of the other stuff.

I think the sliminess in the real thing come from the Okra :-)

"I think the sliminess in the real thing come from the Okra"

Exactly. Some of us were forced to live in the South, so we know Okra.

There is only one food item that I totally reject, and that is boiled waxed okra.

–B.G.–

The scariest part is freeze-dried okra exists ;-)

I believe that the forced feeding of okra was banned by the Geneva Convention.

–B.G.–

Or any kind of feeding!

Every time I had it – except once – it has been slimy. I lived in New Orleans for 3 years so I got slimed more times than a ghostbuster. But I once had it in Greece, made by one of my relatives during a visit. It was not the least bit slimey, and was in fact one of the most delicious things I ever ate. I wish now that I had asked her to explain to me what she did, but at that point in my life I didn't realize how unusual it was. Perhaps a Google search might have some answers in this day and age.

Mountain House sells big #10 cans of freeze dried white rice. This stuff rehydrates almost instantly, even in cold water. They also have an interesting rice pilaf that can serve as a good base for something more exciting.

I'm not much of a rice guy, but sometimes I like to do a Mexican meal out there. Some rice, dehydrated red, black, or pinto beans, some FD burger, a dose of my favorite green chile (which I dehydrate), and some FD cheddar cheese from Packit Gourmet. I pre-soak/simmer the chili and beans for 5 minutes, and I soak the cheese separately. Then I add the FD ingredients to the pot, along with a bit of Mexican spice mixture. I simmer everything for another 5 minutes, then I fill up a couple of tortillas and live large. You could easily do the same thing for a Jambalaya recipe.

My local grocery store has a really good, pre-cooked locally made Andouille sausage. Jambalaya (sans Okra) actually is a great trail dinner. Do you think Andouille sausage can be effectively dehydrated. This particular brand is pretty lean, but I'm guessing maybe the fat content would be an issue? Or is it just an issue with the preservation time? I don't have too much of a problem doing the dehydration a few weeks before in many case. Anyway, meat can be tough…er… to dehydrate and rehydrate properly.

Since I already had the components including the andouille, I tried out dehydrating some Zatarain's jambalaya mix cooked with the Andouille, and dehydrated, It rehydrated perfectly, although the sausage part needed to continue to soak about twice as long to get it back to close to normal. Surprisingly this had almost the least loss of taste or texture between the fresh and re-hydrated meals of anything I have tried yet – but full disclosure, I'm a newb at dehydration. It a great combo and I'm thinking of making it one of my 4 or 5 backpacking meals to make in bulk.

great input and suggestions – and thanks Markos for test driving!

I'm giving it a shot this weekend and I'll report back!

As a Southerner, I just have to point out that classic jambalaya does not include okra.

Jambalaya is essentially southern paella that always includes the trinity (onions, celery & bell peppers)& andouille sausage, spices and either chicken or shrimp (but never both together).

I'd think you can make a decent jambalaya with some freeze dried chicken, freeze dried veggies (the trinity), minute rice, Tony Chachere's seasoning & of course some Tabasco.

As for Okra – okra is for gumbo, mainly used as a thickener. If cooked long enough, the slime cooks out and thickens the stew, leaving just the green, stem-like structure that isn't slimy at all. And if you don't like okra in your gumbo, make file' gumbo with file' powder (made from ground leaves of the sassafras tree.)