Skip to main content
Main

Jam Bolaya

A rice stew made with chicken parts, lard, flour, onions, tomatoes, oysters, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Jam Bolaya

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Heat the lard in a pan.

  2. Add flour and cook until light brown with the chopped onion.

  3. Add the chicken giblets, neck, small wings, and feet to the lard.

Cook the jambalaya

  1. Stir in the prepared tomatoes, oysters with their liquor, pepper, and salt.

  2. Add the rice and butter, stirring frequently as it cooks.

  3. Cover and let it steam on the stove until done.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lard
Provides the cooking fat that carries the flavour of the dish.
Flour
Browns in the fat to thicken the base and add a toasted, nutty flavour.
Chicken giblets, neck, wings and feet
Release gelatin and savoury flavour into the base as they cook.
Prepared tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture, adding colour and tang to the sauce.
Oysters
Add briny, savoury flavour and tenderness as they cook through.
Rice
Absorbs the cooking liquid and softens to form the body of the dish.

The step that matters

Browning the flour with the onion. Flour browned in fat gives a roux-like base that thickens and adds flavour. Stopping at light brown keeps it from scorching, since over-dark roux turns bitter and loses its thickening power.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, chicken, tomato, oyster, pepper, rice, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, chicken, tomato, oyster, pepper, rice, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More jambalaya recipes

Oyster 6Cajun 3Chicken 3Creole 3Vegetarian 3 See all 20 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes