Contractor's jambalaya recipe continues to evolve
Nothing ever stays the same.
Including John Bogaert's jambalaya.
“It's something that has evolved with me over the years,” the Barrington resident says. “I've been married for 20 years and I've been making it for 20 years.”
As with so many things, his Creole-inspired stew has mellowed over the years.
“I used to make it so hot, most human beings couldn't tolerate it,” said the 46-year-old father of three. “Now the flavors are real complex.”
Born and raised in Palatine, the Fremd High School graduate first encountered a recipe for the signature Louisiana dish on a cooking show.
“I used to watch Emeril Lagasse with a pad of paper right in front of me,” John said.
Perhaps part of the attraction to jambalaya was that it's so different from the food he grew up with.
With its origins in Louisiana, jambalaya is known for its spicy flavor and often is packed with meat from the sea such as shrimp, oysters and crab. Okra, a vegetable peculiar to the American south also is typically a part of the stew which is rounded out with rice.
As the son of Belgian immigrants John remembers the family dinner table laden with delicacies such as fried calf hearts and brains cooked with eggs. At school, he'd eat head cheese or tongue sandwiches on homemade rye bread. Spices were scarce.
“It was kidneys and livers and throwaway parts,” he said. “It was all very basic and not that spicy. If they used pepper, that was aggressive.”
Sandwiched between Germany and France, Belgium cuisine often is overshadowed by the two more famous cultures, he said.
“We were not allowed to say french fry,” John said. “My grandmother used to say the French don't know how to fry a potato. Belgians claim the french fry, but my grandparents called them flitches.”
So John would look forward to the nights when the menu was something most Americans would recognize — steak, flitches and coleslaw.
Nowadays John cooks most nights at home because he's a general contractor and “we're not building a lot of houses these days.”
He generally doesn't stray so very far from his roots, favoring familiar, uncomplicated dishes like pot roast, spaghetti and meatballs and chicken in various forms. For a beloved Family Pizza Recipe, visit dailyherald.com/entlife/food.
Over the years he also has brought more of his roots to his jambalaya, adding ingredients like lamb shank and smoked ham.
And he's experimented with the heat of the dish, trying different spices at different stages of the cooking. He's found that he can add cayenne or chili powder earlier in the process and get a subtler heat. He also discovered that cracked red pepper holds its heat no matter how long its cooked.
Even though John has dialed down the heat in his jambalaya, it still is far more spicy than most Belgians would tolerate, he said.
“My Dad never would put it in his mouth,” John said.
“I really want to communicate to people that you can have parties around this food,” John said. “People can help put together the pizza and help cut up stuff for the jambalaya and then you go outside and play with the kids while it cooks.”
Some things never really change after all.