Terrebonne Parish/“Chauvin Style” no-roux gumbo (w/pics)

Highly recommend picking up a copy of Mosquito Supper Club if you haven’t yet. Besides the fact that it is a beautiful hardcover book with great editorial and photos, the recipes are all really good.

The author is from Terrebonne Parish, and one thing she went into detail about was how most folks there don’t use roux in their gumbo in their homes. She explained that the deep, rich roux-forward gumbos are more of a thing she experienced in restaurants when she moved to New Orleans. Although of course, most prairie Cajuns use at least some roux in their gumbo.

I followed her recipe for the most part, with a few tweaks to make up for not having a long oval Magnelite.





The recipe calls for 3# of onions, which took a lot longer than the recommended 30 minutes to get golden brown.



Then you add celery and bell pepper, turn down heat, cover, smother 20 minutes.



While these are going, marinate your chicken in salt, pepper, cayenne, and hot sauce.



I knew I’d need to change pots so I browned the chicken in the new bigger pot and continued to let the veggies cook.

This is half the chicken. I did 10 thighs instead of a broken down whole chicken.



For the second batch of thighs, I did what she recommended and covered them with the veg.



Then we add the chicken stock. This is where I kinda started to worry because it doesn’t look very good. I’m not a chicken soup person and I was afraid it would just taste like chicken soup.



But I let it simmer a long while, seasoned as if it was gumbo, and put a dash of browning liquid because I just couldn’t handle the color. I’M SORRY.



Had to skim a bit as I went.

Let simmer for about an hour.



Season to your liking and serve with green onion, hot sauce, and filè. I served over yellow rice just because I felt like it.



I actually deboned my chicken after plating. Ended up deboning all the chicken in the leftovers as well.