The dish presents a colorful panorama with everything sitting in one big skillet. The pink morsels of shrimp and tiny fragments of fresh red tomatoes stand out against the backdrop of glossy, grained rice. Slices of okra and delicate green herbs speckle the surface, while the crab claws popping up throughout the dish are like little flags of promise of the flavours awaiting beneath the surface.

Gullah Jamboree

Name: Gullah Jamboree
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 50 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: African American
Ingredients: 4 whole blue crab cleaned and halved; 12 large shrimp peeled and deveined; 1 cup okra sliced; 1 cup long grain white rice; 2 ripe tomatoes diced; 1 onion diced; 2 cloves of garlic minced; 1 red bell pepper diced; 2 tablespoons vegetable oil; to taste salt; to taste black pepper; 1 tsp paprika; 1 tsp thyme; 4 cups water

Culturally-rich, vibrant, seafood rice stew.

Category Main Course

Prep 10 minutes

Cook 40 minutes

Style African American

Technique Sautéing

Diet Friendly Pescatarian

Daily recipe · June 19, 2024

A little about this dish

In celebration of Juneteenth, we're about to prepare Gullah Jamboree—an African American dish that combines West African, French, and Spanish cooking techniques. The key ingredients, like okra, shrimp, rice, and spices, reflect the mix of cultures and also pay homage to the African ancestry prevalent in the southern United States.

Ingredients (for 4)

Blue crab — 4 whole — cleaned and halved
Large shrimp — 12 — peeled and deveined
Okra — 1 cup — sliced
Long grain white rice — 1 cup
Ripe tomatoes — 2 — diced
Onion — 1 — diced
Cloves of garlic — 2 — minced
Red bell pepper — 1 — diced
Vegetable oil — 2 tablespoons
Salt — to taste
Black pepper — to taste
Paprika — 1 tsp
Thyme — 1 tsp
Water — 4 cups

Preparation

Step 1 — 🔪🍅🧄

Dice the tomatoes, onion and red bell pepper, mince the garlic, slice the okra, clean and halve the crabs, and peel and devein the shrimp.
Step 2 — 🍳🌶️🍅

In a large skillet, heat the vegetable oil. Add the diced onion, minced garlic, diced bell pepper and diced tomatoes. Sauté for about five minutes until the vegetables are softened.
Step 3 — 🥘🍚🥄

Add rice to the skillet and stir until it is well coated with the vegetable mixture.
Step 4 — 💦🌿🌶️

Add the water, paprika, thyme, salt, and pepper to the skillet. Mix well and bring the mixture to a boil.
Step 5 — 🦀🍤🌡️

Lower the heat to simmer. Then, add the halved crabs, shrimp and sliced okra to the skillet.
Step 6 — ⏰🔥🔁

Cover the skillet and simmer for 20-30 minutes, or until the rice is fully cooked and the water has been absorbed.
Step 7 — 🥘😋🎉

Serve your Gullah Jamboree right out of the skillet and enjoy your Juneteenth celebration!

A final fox tip

Juneteenth represents African American freedom and achievement and is an occasion for reflection, rejoicing, self-assessment and planning for the future. This delicious Gullah Jamboree is a powerful symbol of how African culture has influenced and become an integral part of American cuisine. Kids can help with peeling the shrimp, or if they're older, dice the vegetables under adult supervision.