Need a Damn Good Recipe for Gumbo

Kind of involved, but here's how I do it. I make seafood gumbo rather than sausage and chicken, but this recipe works for both. It will take you an afternoon.

Get a big old soup pot, as big as the batch you want to make. If you are doing this by yourself, chop up the veggies ahead of time.

Make the roux in the soup pot as follows:

Coat bottom of soup pot with about 1/4" vegetable oil.
Stir in 3 tablespoons of flour.
Set your stove on the lowest heat possible, put the pot over the heat, and start stirring your ass off with a metal utensil...I use a combination of a large metal spoon and a metal spatula. I also tune the TV to a sporting event and turn the volume up loud, put both phones on the counter top, and line up 4-5 beers. You are going to be standing at the stove for a while.

You will be stirring constantly for 1 to 1.5 hours. Don't stop stirring because the flour will burn quickly even on low heat. If the roux burns you have to start all over again.

I place a penny on the counter top as well, and I do not stop stirring until the roux is the color of the penny. Like I said, takes between 1 and 1.5 hours.

Once the roux is done to that color, stir in 2 medium chopped onions, 1.5 cups of chopped green bell pepper and 1.5 cups of chopped celery. The veggies will sizzle when they hit the roux. Stir it up only until the veggies begin to get soft (maybe 3-4 minutes).

Once the veggies are soft, fill the pot to 3/4ths full with boiling water (very important). Season well with cayenne pepper, tabasco sauce, regular salt and pepper, perhaps a little garlic powder, a small amount of gumbo file', and toss in 4-5 bay leaves.

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer covered, stirring often. Simmer for 3 hours or so.

Thirty minutes before you want to eat, stir in 1-1.5 pounds of peeled, deveined shrimp, a pound of crabmeat or chopped up fake crabmeat, a package of cooked crawfish tails, and a container of raw oysters. Also toss in a half a can of beer. Let simmer for another 30 minutes, and season some more to taste.

Serve it over cooked rice, and enjoy!

I usually do this once every winter on a really cold Saturday or Sunday.

 

or go to Hebert's meat market and pick some roux up already ready already!

 

Yeah, but I have always had bad luck with pre-made roux. Don't know why, but it never tastes as good. Call me a purist!

 

i hear ya. i've copied your recipe and printed it out!

i've had a bad time with pre-made roux, too...but Hebert's is as good as it gets in that regard.

by the way...pick up a crawfish pie from there...small slice of heaven.

 

Oh yes. I have had Hebert's crawfish pie and their turduckens quite a few times. Great place!

 

we got a chicken there the other night..stuffed with crawfish...incredible. the whole thing was under $10 ready to go...just heat and serve. so freaking good.

 

I know. It's involved, but if you want to do it right, this is the way. Like I said, I do it on a cold winter weekend day when there is football on TV, so I can watch & listen to the game while I am stirring!

 

is it cheese, RMTex?? there's a bisque-like cream inside with crawfish tails...it may have cheese in there.

 

I have two great recipes at home. One is the chicken and sausage gumbo (aka Gumbo Ya Ya) they serve at Mr B's in the French Quarter. I also have the recipe of the seafood gumbo from Commander's Palace. It is excellent. E-mail me at home and I will be happy to send a copy.

 

I cook my roux in less than thirty minutes using a fairly high heat. I start off with high heat stirring constantly, and as soon as the roux gives off the first little bit of smoke, I turn off the fire and wait about a minute. Then I turn the heat back on and keep it around medium. You don't want the oil to get any hotter than the "smoking point" because the taste is less desirable. I use a ratio of about one to one on flour and oil

The only problem with this method is that you have to be VERY concentrated on the task at hand. You must stir constantly, and you must be very diligent in keeping every portion of the bottom of the skillet well scraped so that no part of the roux stays in contact with the skillet for any length of time. If you're gonna go to the trouble of making a roux, do yourself a favor and spend 15 or 20 bucks and buy yourself a decent cast iron skillet (or dutch oven).

About the only thing I'd add to RMTEX's recipe is to buy your shrimp with the head's on and peel them yourself. Besides generally being less expensive overall, you'll have the shrimp shells and head's to boil in water before hand. This makes a shrimp flavored stock that you use instead of the boiling water--it gives the gumbo an added dimension and certainly makes it richer. I've also been known to use fish heads and backbones after a fishing trip to make seafood stock. If you use shucked oysters, make sure you use the liguid (referred to as "liquor") that they're packed in as well.

Also, I don't add my seafood until the very end--I put it all in, and bring the gumbo to a soft boil; then I reduce the heat and simmer for just a few minutes more. Seafood cooks VERY quickly, and the quality of most seafood (especially shrimp) diminishes with overcooking.

 

Excellent points. I do the shrimp-shell stock thing sometimes. And yes, 30 minutes is too long. 15-20 does the trick. Once the shrimp turns red, you are basically done. I like to put in the seafood, bring it to a medium boil, and then just take it off the heat completely and let it sit covered for 5-10 minutes.

 

It may have cheese in it, but very little. It's almost like a thickened version of crawfish bisque.

 

I would love to have these recipes!

And, do you REALLY live on Balboa Islaned?!?! I was just there two weeks ago during a California vacation! Took my wife and kid there, and my kid got to eat her first balboa bar and frozen banana! Did the obligatory ferris wheel ride, walked down the pier and just had a blast!

-- droxford