Shrimp Gumbo (photos)

I'm either really brave, or stupid. I suspect the latter because I'm going to share the shrimp gumbo I made today. The 1920s recipe comes from old family friends - the mother of a BR guy who served with my father in WWII.

Started with the basic stuff - chicken thighs, trinity, garlic and okra:



Seasoned the thighs with a little red cayenne pepper, salt and black pepper, then lightly dusted them with some flour and fried them in the pan I intended to use for the gumbo.



Then I made the roux (brown shoe dark) and chopped my trinity - a cup of celery, maybe a cup and a half of green pepper and a little more than that of onion.



Cooked the veggies a while:



And added a couple of cloves of garlic when the veggies were getting tender.



After cooking the garlic for a few minutes, I added some shrimp stock from the freezer and some chicken stock. Next, a couple of bay leaves, two teaspoons of thyme, a teaspoon of dill, a teaspoon of pepper flakes (edited to add and a half teaspoon of ground mustard). Then I added the chicken,



some tomato and okra from the garden that I had precooked for about five minutes in the microwave to dry them out a little. Cooked this for a half hour, until everything was tender. Then I turned off the heat and added three cups of raw peeled shrimp.



After adding the shrimp, I covered the pot and let things get happy for fifteen or twenty minutes, then stirred the pot and served in my favorite bowl with a scoop of basmati rice.



The money shot:



Had seconds - my belly is now happy.