I have enjoyed Jambalaya when travelling on business in the US. Indeed I have tried the dish in a range of locations from the Jazz Kitchen, in Dubwa's town of Austin, Texas, to the Santa Fe in Helsinki, Finland. The Jazz Kitchen is probably the nearest I have been to Louisiana and I assume the most authentic - though I understand there may be quite a bit of variation.
In the Jazz Kitchen the Jambalaya is basically a starter or light main course served in a soup bowl. It is also quite runny with a strong flavour of beef stock and is eaten with a soup spoon. They use andouille sausage which is slighltly spicy and is a converntional sausage unlike the French andoillette. I have never seen this sort of sausage for sale in the UK.

In Helsinki I assume they find it equally difficult to get Louisiana sausage and Santa Fe's jambalaya is quite different. They have finely chopped chicken, ham and small prawns through the rice and serve it on a hot cast iron plate with a sausage on the top. It is not runny and the rice has tomato purée through it. The sausage was much like a light coloured Bratwurst. I thought this version was more likely to be a success at home.

My version certainly does not try to be authentic - though it has the cajun 'trinity' of onion, celery and peppers. Having tried out a few sausages with it my family are happy with Lidl bratwurst sausages. Although you are supposed to use ham and prawns and chicken I generally use one or the other to avoid having too many partly used packs in my fridge. Since my boys love the sausages that part of the recipe is overweighted. The quantities are rough.

Serves 5-6

Ingredients

500 g sausages
250 g chicken or gammon steak or prawns
300 g onion (one large onion or a few medium ones)
4 celery sticks
one large pepper or two small ones (roughly 250 g)
400 g rice
500 ml passata
3 large garlic cloves
4 tsp cajun spices (I use a mix I bought in the shop, but you can make your own seasoning)

Method

1. Heat a little vegetable oil in a wok
2. If using chicken, dice it and brown it in the wok and set aside
3. Finely shred the onion, celery and garlic and cook with a medium heat in the wok
4. Put on the rice, making sure you do not have too much water in the pan. Err on the side of the rice being on the dry side as more liquid will be absorbed later.
5. Grill the sausages (with bratwurst we grill them then chop them into roughly 1 cm slices and grill the slices again end on)
6. After about 15 minutes frying, shred the pepper, add to the wok and fry for 5 minutes
7. If you are using gammon steak or prawns, they are already cooked, add to the wok and stir. If using chicken add the set aside pieces at this point too.
8. Add 3 tsp cajun spices and mix through the wok, then add the passata and allow to reduce a little
9. When the rice is ready add roughly half and mix through the wok, then add the other half.
10. Mix the bratwurst slices through the jambalaya
11. Add another teaspoonful of spices and mix thoroughly before serving.