Cajun Jambalaya: Benjamin Harrison (flickr)

A great way to save money on the road is by cooking for yourself in hostel kitchens. However, cooking for yourself as a world traveler can often be a challenge in itself. Not every town in the world has an American-style super market where you can pick up all your favorite foods and ingredients from back home. Instead you’ll likely have to make due with what is locally available, which sometimes isn’t much. For example, a food staple throughout much of Africa is goat. But how the hell do you prepare goat? Good question!

If you really like cooking, or are an aspiring iron chef, this can be a unique and fun challenge. However, if you are more like me, and just want to put some food on the table as quickly and painlessly as possible, I recommend learning a few “one recipe fits all” food preparation strategies.

A “one recipe fits all” is basically a simple recipe that you can alter to fit any food availability situation. My personal favorite “one recipe fits all” is Cajun Jambalaya.

Cajun Jambalaya is a great recipe to carry with you on the road, because it is extremely flexible. It can be made with virtually any type of meat, as the Cajuns have traditionally prepared it with everything from crawfish to alligator meat. The only real requirements are that you include onions, celery, and green peppers (though even these are flexible), a cajun spice mix (which I recommend you just bring from home - can be used on all sorts of undesirable food to mask the flavor), and rice (available pretty much anywhere).

Some other advantages to Cajun Jambalaya is that it’s cooked in just one pot, and that you can easily make as much or as little as you like. Ingredients are extremely flexible, and in most cases you just throw in whatever you have. The cajun spice mix does a great job homogenizing the flavor of the overall dish, so even if you’re cooking with goat meat it still tastes like normal jambalaya.

Below is a simple and flexible recipe for Cajun Jambalaya that can be used pretty much anywhere in the world:

Ingredients:

• Meat(s) (whatever you’ve got! can be excluded if vegetarian)
• Onions, celery, green peppers (these are called the trinity. use them if you can, if not just do your best)
• Other Vegetables (whatever’s available, toss it in!)
• Cajun spice mix (see below for details)
• Cooking Oil
• Chicken stock or vegetable stock (water can be used if stock is unavailable, though some flavor is lost)

Cajun Spice Mix: (I recommend mixing this up and bringing it from home or from a big city, as spices can sometimes be difficult to find in rural areas. Can be used on virtually anything, and is legal to take through customs)

• 2 parts salt
• 2 parts garlic powder
• 1 part black pepper
• 1 part cayenne pepper
• 1 part curry powder
• 1 part onion powder

Heat cooking oil in a large pot and add meat(s). Cook until brown. Add onions, celery, and green peppers, and sautee until brown. Add any other vegetables as well as cajun spice mix and continue to sautee until everything is cooked and brown. Add rice and chicken/vegetable stock (or water if stock is unavailable). Cook without stirring until rice has been cooked. Most of the stock/water should be absorbed into the rice so that the final dish is wet, but not soupy.

What’s your favorite “one recipe fits all”?

Cajun Jambalaya Links:

• Wikipedia - Jambalaya: Description and history on this unique dish
• Food Network - Jambalaya: Emeril Laggasse’s jambalaya recipe
• Real Cajun Recipes: How to cook Jambalaya for 120

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