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Karan
02/19/2023

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I thought I would share one of my gumbo recipes!

I love to make gumbo. There are lots of varieties that I make. Some have seafood only, some have chicken and sausage (very traditional) but you also see sausage and seafood in some areas of Louisiana.

Rabbit, ham, crab, even oysters, anything goes with gumbo! Creole gumbo usually includes some tomatoes and often okra, but there are no hard and fast rules about this. Other gumbos just use filé (sassafras) powder, or a combo of that and okra. Lent is coming up, so I'll probably make some gumbo z'herbes (traditionally vegetarian gumbo for lent, although some people add a little meat these days). But for now, I made a Cajun filé gumbo with andouille sausage and shrimp.

I make this with either a seafood stock or a chicken stock depending on what I have on hand to make stock, so I included procedures for both. This batch had chicken stock.

Recipe

  • 1 cup oil (I used peanut oil this time but canola is also fine)
  • 1 cup AP flour
  • 1 very large yellow onion
  • 2 bell peppers diced (I used one green and one red)
  • 1 1⁄2 cups diced celery, approximately (I love celery, you might want to use just a cup if you're less fond of it)
  • 1 tbs filé powder
  • 1 tsp. cayenne
  • 1 tsp. paprika
  • 8 cups of good stock--normally I make seafood stock, this time I used chicken stock I made.
  • 1 lb Andouille sausage. You can sub in another smoked sausage if you can't find it.
  • 2 pounds of large shrimp (prawns for the UK)
  • 2 tbs Worcestershire sauce
  • 6 ounces dry white wine (this is optional)
  • 5 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 3 bay leaves
  • ½ cup minced flat leaf parsley
  • 1 large jalapeno, minced
  • ½ tsp ground allspice
  • Fresh thyme (around 1 tbs)
  • Fresh marjoram (around 1 tbs)
  • Salt to taste plus a generous amount of Tony Chachere's
  • Hot sauce
  • Scallions for garnish

Roux

I make my roux in the oven--sounds odd, but once I started I never looked back. Start your oil and flour on the stove in a heavy Dutch oven, on low heat until it starts to bubble, stirring constantly. Put the lid on the Dutch oven and stick it in the oven at 350F. Stir it every 15 minutes, thoroughly, so that it does not scorch. Keep doing this until you reach the color you want. I like mine dark but not too dark. The darker your roux, the more depth of flavor but the less it thickens. The filé powder helps to thicken it. It's all a matter of taste!

For reference, I got mine to between a 9 and 10 on this chart.. If you choose this level, it should look like melted milk chocolate and smell nutty and a little acrid (but it should NOT smell like burned toast).

Most of the time for roux in French cooking you need to use equal parts fat and flour by weight. Here I do it by volume because I've found for gumbo that just works better. I don't use butter because butter tends to burn if you go for that dark roux...burned butter is hard to come back from. Oil is the safe choice!

Stock

The stock I made in the pressure cooker using the carcass from a roast chicken, some leek tops, carrots, peppercorns, and celery tops. Very simple. I don't salt it because I like to control the salt later.

If you're making seafood stock:

You can make it in a pressure cooker. I usually do it using the shells from the shrimp that I saute for a while in the instant pot to get the most flavor out of them, and then add some fish bits I often have in the freezer, some celery leaves, leek tops, black peppercorns, and parsley. If you don't have the stuff to make your own, you can buy seafood stock.

Procedure

Put your roux on the stove on low-medium heat and add your onion (it should be a little over a cup of diced onion). Get it sweating, then add your celery and peppers. Stir well to get them coated and keep cooking them in the roux. Add the garlic, stir again. Now start adding your stock (and the wine if you want to include it). I add it one cup at a time while stirring because I find it gives a better consistency. Add you bay leaves, spices, and Worcestershire. You want to get all of this bubbling then turn the heat down to low and simmer. Simmer it for an hour. I chose to brown my Andouille separately, not for any reason other than I was a bit disorganized while cooking this. Add the andouille and keep simmering it until the flavors meld to your liking. I don't time this part, I just do it based on how it smells and tastes.

The only time sensitive part of this is the shrimp. I add it at the very end so it doesn't overcook. You'll get enough of the shrimp flavor from using seafood stock if you're using that, so just quickly poach them in the gumbo right at the end. But it all still tastes great with chicken stock, or even pork stock--use what you have, the most important thing is the quality of the stock!

Serve with rice and scallions if you like (I love any excuse to put scallions on things).

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