I'll try and think about what i did later but tbh I was kinda drunk and just doing things lmao

Okay so this isn't vegan FYI but I mean feel free to swap whatever. Also I did NOT measure ANYTHING I am sorry. When I say "a little bit" I mean like idk half a teaspoon? Anyway, to the best of my recollection:

I diced one medium sized onion, one big celery stalk, one small carrot (like 6in long), and aside from that finely minced maybe 2-3 strips of bacon and diced one large (compared to others of the same type) sweet campari tomato. I also tried to process garlic in my food processor but it broke and my stick blender turned it into garlic puree so I had that

IF YOU WANT TO MAKE IT BETTER THAN I DID I WOULD DICE UP AT LEAST HALF A RED BELL PEPPER IF NOT THE WHOLE THING!!! it ain't really cajun without the trinity

Once you get all that ready, throw some butter in the pan, get it all nice and hot and then throw in the onion. I like to get the onion some head start because I like the taste of caramelized onion and that takes a bit and you don't really need to cook the rest of it that long. Anyway, cook that like 5-6 minutes until it's maybe starting to start to brown, then add the celery and carrot, cook that another like 4-5 minutes and then add the diced bacon. Cook that until the bacon is getting good and crispy or at least renders out all its fat and starts to caramelize (it might be better to just cook the bacon separately btw and then add perfectly cooked bacon bits later) before adding the garlic

When I added the garlic I added maybe like half a cup of arborio rice? I didn't really measure it properly but I filled up a 1/3rd cup and then mostly filled it again before going "that's probably enough rice"

Anyway, add the garlic add the rice and then stir it up a bit and let it cook another like 2-3 minutes on a high heat so that the garlic starts to caramelize and the rice starts to toast

Then add the tomato (I wait to add the tomato because it's adding a lot of moisture that will hinder the bacon/garlic cooking properly) and cook it for like another minute or two

After cooking the tomato for a bit I added like idk maybe half a cup of white cooking wine (the cheap shit) and half a cup of sherry cooking wine, stirred it up and let that absorb, then I started adding stock. I used chicken stock but I mean whatever works

You can either like buy stock to add or just do what I did and throw in like a finger full of bouillon (I like the better-than-bouillon jars, they're very shopliftable) and stir it up and then start adding water.

Since it's risotto you want to let it absorb the wine and then when you're adding stock do like half a cup at a time, stir stir stir stir stir so it absorbs evenly, but let it kinda dry out until you start to hear it sizzle (meaning the water is gone and it's frying again) and cook it a little bit longer before adding some more water

You repeat this process for approximately 20 minutes until the rice has absorbed enough liquid to be fully hydrated + cooked long enough to be tender and good. It's approximately 20 minutes but definitely taste it at the end of that to make sure it's done, otherwise it'll be like eating chalk]

When it's finally done done with the last bit of liquid I added a splash of heavy cream to finish it

Now as for seasonings what I recall putting in are: salt and pepper, basil, thyme, maybe half a tablespoon each of ancho and chipotle chile powders, same with paprika, a SMALL (less than half tsp) bit of cayenne, white pepper, a bit of coriander, a SMALL bit of cinnamon, a SMALL bit of dried mustard, oregano, and like one bay leaf. I also put in a few drops of fish sauce for fishy umami enhancement

It doesn't really matter when you add the seasoning but maybe add it right before the tomato so they get cooked a little first before adding all the liquid, that might be better

anyway! I think that's everything, sorry I was drunk and on auto pilot lmao

p.s. I believe with the bacon and the tomato this technically qualifies as a "jambalaya risotto"

Yeah it's fine, you can also DM me if you want, but to tag you just type @ then start typing a username and suggestions should come up

My biggest frustration with the game is how slow it is to actually start. I really think base construction should be doubled, so you can at least build 1 building at full speed right at the beginning.

I'm not a Victoria genius but generally what I do is start building a few logging camps, then a tooling workshop, then an iron mine, then switch tools to iron tools to start staffing that, then alternate between those and coal and iron to prepare for switching to iron construction

If you have a shitload of money you can switch early and idk if you have input goods shortages you can look at how much construction it gives you versus how much it's costing you and see if you think it's efficient. Iron and tools trade routes can help reduce input goods shortages but at first theres so little of it you probably can't get more than an unprofitable 5 unit trade route for each route

Something I'd wanna do as portugal is conquer Tonkin or some of Siam's states (unless you can get in on the opium wars and steal Yunnan or Sichuan) and start building a shitload of opium. That'll help your economy for sure (but whenever you're building opium you're not building iron and construction capacity :/) because the Chinese basically will buy as much as you can make

Oh don't forget as Portugal your treaty port in macau means you have tariff free trade routes with China!