Smoked Chicken and Andouille Gumbo

The other day I was reading a post here about making a roux. In the thread there was a mention about a rabbit and andouille gumbo which I thought was interesting because a day or two before I had taken a rabbit out of the freezer to thaw, or so I thought it was a rabbit. It turned out to be alligator wings(small alligator legs that looked somewhat like chicken wings. Lol...... So after having read about that rabbit and andouille gumbo I had an envie for a gumbo and I had taken a quick drive that morning to Laplace to get some fresh andouille and now I couldn't make that gumbo. Someone suggested I use chicken but we had none at home. Except for the live ones out in the backyard. I could have and was tempted to go wring one of them's neck and use a fresh hen but I wasn't in the mood for the mess. Yeah, I could've run to the grocery and gotten a chiccken but I didn't feel like going out again. I called the wife and asked her to grab one as I knew she was making a quick stop on the way home. So she comes home with a nice plump five and a half pound chicken but I didn't want to get started so late in the afternoon.


Yesterday morning I seasoned the chicken up with Frere Jean Cajun seasoning and sea salt and put it on the Traeger to smoke for a few hours while Idid a little Fall grass cuttuing and cleaning up leaves and such. The hens survived this weekend!



Here it is almost ready to come off the smoker



After deboning the chicken the skin, bones and all went into a stock pot with cool water to simmer for a few hours. After three hours I removed it from the heat, strained it and tossed the bones and stuff in the garbage and the stock went in the fridge to cool overnight. The stock came out with a nice smoky aroma and rich flavor.

This morning all I had to do was slice andouille and put the gumbo together. Everything else was chopped and roux made.



It's simmering right now so I'll update later.