re: Chicken and Sausage Gumbo (w/ pics)

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I tried a fried chicken gumbo for the first time for the bama game and ran into a problem that has vexed me ever since. I've never burned a roux before, and somehow it got burned this time. I'm pretty sure what happened was the sediment from the fried chicken burned while I was heating up my oil before adding flour. How do y'all handle this part? Do you treat the sediment like a roux and stir it while the oil heats up?

It's kind of throwing me off because I usually like to do a roux a la prudhomme on higher heat, but it seems like you have to be a lot more careful when getting the oil up to the right temp with the sediment in there.

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I think that's exactly what happened. You burned the sediment when heating the oil without the rest of the flour. You have to be careful when frying the chicken that you don't fry too much in the same pot and you don't burn the sediment as you call it.

Ways to combat that are not to preheat the oil before whisking in your additional flour for the roux. I've never preheated the oil. Another method is not frying the chicken too long. Many times, I don't necessarily fry the chicken such that it's cooked through expecially if I have really large pieces. My goal is that it's golden brown on the outside and flavoring the oil. The rest of it will cook thoroughly during the simmer after I've deboned it and cut it into bite size pieces to add to the stock.