gumbo

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canjun

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I'm a Texan and a Cajun but you can't have mine because like most cajuns, I'm just too lazy and drunk to type it right now.

Its to damn hot to even think about gumbo, much less talk recipes.

No one makes gumbo in the summertime.

Coach Wright ...

There's dozens of different kinds of gumbo and a thousand ways to make them but if you want to try a pretty basic gumbo here's one :

To make a chicken and sausage gumbo ...

Slice a pound of smoked sausage and fry it up in a tablespoon of cooking oil or bacon grease in a big heavy pot over medium heat til its browned on all sides. Then use the same pot with another tablespoon or 2 of oil to brown about 3 or 4 pounds of chicken pieces til all golden. Set the browned sausage and chicken aside and put another half-cup of oil in the pot and stir in a half-cup of flour. Now youre making a roux which is what thickens the gumbo and makes it taste 'cajun'. A roux is just flour browned in oil so it's simple, but you can't let it burn even a little or its ruined ... you have to stand there and constantly stir and stir the flour around in the oil as it cooks. It will turn from white to yellow to tan to light brown to dark brown eventually but it takes 30 mins at least and you cant walk away from it even for a moment or it will scorch ... and then you have to throw it away and start over. It takes patience but just keep stirring it all around scraping the bottom of the pot as you stir and it will cook til brown. Once the roux is dark enough for you, toss in 1 large or 2 medium chopped onions and a half-cup each of chopped celery and chopped bell pepper, and a tablespoon or 2 of chopped garlic. You have to have them all chopped in advance so they're ready when the roux is done. Put them right in the hot roux and fry them while stirring over low heat about 5 mins until tender (the smell at this point is the next best thing to heaven). Next pour in 2 cups of water and stir for a few mins more over medium heat until the roux is completely dissolved in the water. Add in a teaspoon each of salt and pepper and sugar and a half-teaspoon of poultry seasoning, and stir all that up. Pour in 3 more cups of water or chicken broth and put in all the browned sausage and chicken and give it a stir. Then cover the pot and leave it to simmer, bubbling a little but not boiling on low heat, for an hour and it's done. If you make it a day in advance it will taste even better, as it will each time you reheat it if you have leftovers. Serve the gumbo over steamed white rice in bowls, with french bread. It's often served with a sprinkle of chopped parsley and green onions on top and a few drops of Tabasco sauce, but that's all optional. Hope you find a good gumbo recipe even if you don't use this one ... you can find ways to make gumbo with seafood, okra, duck and just about anything else. Best of luck.


eta : If you want a huge shortcut, use ready-made roux from a jar and pre-chopped vegetables (these are available in south Louisiana but might not be in your part of Texas). Instead of rying the vegetables in the roux you just cook them in the oil left in the pot after the sausage and chicken are done. Then after adding the 2 cups of water, you stir in a half-cup of the ready-made roux to dissolve it. The rest is all the same. For a lot of people it's close enough to genuine to be worth it for the amount of work it saves.

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... putting celery in gumbo is just wrong.

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Rules like this make me laugh ... I wonder what other stupidity passes for wisdom in your whine- and-cheese world.

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putting celery in gumbo is just wrong.

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i have never heard of not putting celery in gumbo... Now rotel or tomatoes of any sort is some fricked up yankee shite...

I just thought this was funny - I asked for my Dad's gumbo recipe once and this is what I got (notice the lack of measurements!)

Cook some hot sausage and chicken breasts on the grill.
Make a roux with one cup of oil and one cup of flour.
Use two cans of beef consommé and enough water to get the consistency you want.
sauté one onion, a few stalks of celery, a bell pepper, a bunch of green
onions with most of the top cut off, and three or four cloves of garlic, and add in.
add enough Kitchen Bouquet to get the color you want.
add three tablespoons of Lea and Perrin's, one tablespoon of seasoned salt,
one teaspoon of Tony's .
cut up the meat and add it in.
simmer for at least a half hour.

Am I the only one who doesn't fry up the sausage or chicken before the roux?