it's almost november, and that means two things:

1. girls dressing obscenely ****ty and roaming the streets drunk in anywhere, usa on all hallows eve, awesome.
2. gumbo!

so, in anticipation of it almost being gumbo season, i will leave you with one of my favorite gumbo recipes, in hopes that you guys will do the same. here goes...
(will post pics later)

dark chocolate roux made of equal parts flour and olive oil

trinity(with an extra onion added)

liquid: 2 parts chicken stock to 1 part dry sherry

3 shakes of worcestershire

3 shakes of crystal hot sauce

1 lbs. smoked andouille(should be easy enough to find in e. texas and houston, in dallas i recommend bayou grocery in lewisville)

*1 raccoon(country raccoon, not city raccoon)... and yes, i am serious

1 bouquet garni consisting of: thyme, oregano, and sage

2 bay leaves

simmer on as low as it'll go...

go drink some beer, or wash some clothes or do whatever, just don't get arrested or pass out cause in 4 hours you need to get back to the gumbo

elapsed time: 4 hrs.

take out the coon and let it cool. separate the bones from the meat, throw away the meat and put the bones back in the pot.

jk, you actually want to re-add the meat and throw away the bones.

turn the stove off, grab half a stick of cold butter, cut it in cubes and drop it in, stirring slowly.

put the lid on and throw it in the fridge, then reheat on as low as you can get it the next day, take care not to let it boil.

while the gumbo is cooking, take some sassafras leaves and a mortar and pestle and grind them up til it makes a powder. or you can do like i do and buy some filé.

get a big bowl, add your gumbo, rice, then sprinkle some filé on top and enjoy!


*for people who might not want feel comfortable eating a raccoon, substitute a duck(preferably), or a chicken

*for seafood change the stock to seafood stock and add 1 lbs of shrimp, 1 lbs of crawfish, and 1 lbs of crab



[This message has been edited by senorchipotle (edited 10/19/2011 6:17p).]

Any time is gumbo time!
Unless it's 100+ degrees outside, then making the roux is NOT FUN.

Your recipe is interesting. I've never heard of adding worcestershire or sherry... though I've read about adding worcestershire or soy sauce to soups to get umami from the glutamates.

For my roux, I don't use olive oil. I assume you use extra light? The smoke point of EV seems too low to get your roux dark enough. Never really tried regular olive oil, because it isn't a flavor that I think of in gumbo.

Also, I really don't measure anything except the flour and oil. Everything else is just eye-balled...

1 1/2 cups flour and 1 cup of canola or other essentially flavorless veg oil, to make a dark roux. I abandoned the 1:1 ratio a couple of years ago, because I found that it looked runny as it cooked, and I figured that the flour was giving the flavor, so more flour would probably be better. I have no clue if it's better, but I like it, and I don't have flour floating in oil at the end... it stays a paste.

Trinity, also heavy on the onion.
chicken thighs
chopped garlic - 4 or 5 cloves
home-made chicken stock
sliced okra (1 small or 1.5 large frozen pack)
andouille sausage (or even any spicy smoked sausage in a pinch)
dried thyme
Tony's
Crystal hot sauce
Chopped parsley and green onions

Make the roux. I've never tried any of the tricks like baking it or toasting the flour, but I probably will eventually.

While cooking the roux, put the okra in the oven, on a cookie sheet covered with foil (makes the cleanup easier), at 250-300 deg. This helps get rid of the slimy texture of the cooked okra.

Add the chicken thighs, which stops the roux from cooking and gets a little browning on the meat. Add the trinity. Cook for a couple of minutes, until tender, and add the garlic.

Add the stock. Again, I don't measure, I just put in "enough" to get the right amount of liquid for the solids.

Add the thyme and Tony's until you get the flavor you want. Probably don't need to add salt, because the Tony's will get it salty enough. If you don't like spicy, add less Tony's and salt if needed. Add a few splashes of Crystal.

Simmer for an hour or so, then add the now somewhat dried okra.

Simmer until you're ready to eat. Toss in parsley and green onions right before serving.

Serve over long grain white rice, with file and Crystal.


Last time I made it, I cut the bell pepper and onion very coarse, and after simmering for 4+ hours, the texture wasn't good, so I need to make sure to cut them finer next time. Either that or simmer less. Maybe both?

If I'm making it seafood, I'll make my stock with shrimp peels in addition to the chicken, and add some peeled shrimp and/or crawfish tails a couple of minutes before serving.


The homemade stock makes a big difference imho. I save bits of chicken every time I cut one up in a large zip-lock in the freezer. I tend to buy whole chickens and butterfly or carve them when cooking chicken dishes, so I at least get a back, neck, and wing tips each time. I also rarely buy boneless/skinless anything, which saves $ and gives me stock material. If I have onion or celery that I'm not going to use (such as the stem end of basically every onion I cut), it goes into the bag. When the bag gets full, make a stock. Might have to add more onion, and I usually put in a couple of bay leaves and a teaspoon or 2 of pepper corns. Also, I don't leave the bone on the thighs when I make the gumbo. They go into the next batch of stock!

[This message has been edited by Hodor (edited 10/19/2011 7:57p).]

sounds good, hodor. you reminded me, i forgot the garlic. i just lightly crush two small cloves between my fingers and add them after the liquid.

yeah, the sherry adds a nice flavor, imho. my grandma uses chardonnay, but i prefer the flavor of sherry in making gumbo, it seems to click. as for the worcestershire, i'm not quite sure why i add it, just picked it up somewhere along the way, i guess.

i definitely not use extra virgin for the roux, made that mistake one time and smoked up the whole house. i think i'm gonna try grapeseed oil next time and see how that goes.

some images from a gator and sausage gumbo i made last year...






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[This message has been edited by senorchipotle (edited 10/19/2011 9:03p).]

Gator? I need to get more adventurous with my gumbo meats!

This is what I love about Cajun food...
It's basically peasant food.
Take any damn ingredient you can find (even if it's in the ditch, like crawfish), and make something good and hearty.

BTW, I don't duck hunt... where can you buy duck? Wife's grandmother used to make duck gumbo, but it was because her family hunted duck.

<oh, and I can't see the pics>

yeah, sorry i suck at hosting/uploading pics. i'm pretty sure you can get a whole duck at central market or a mom and pop/specialty meats store. my stepdad limits out every year so it's not too hard to come by.

I see one now.
Nice color on that! You definitely get your roux really dark. That's darker than 'dark penny', which I've seen some cooking shows say is the color you want. I try to get mine to that color, too.

The last few minutes of making the roux are the most stressful of anything I cook! It's the only thing that I call for a second opinion on any more. My wife (who taught me the basics of gumbo) gets called every time to give it a look.

OK, next time I'm at central market I'll make it a point to look.

I actually have cousins who coon hunt, and I even went with them once in high school. Fun, but...
I don't think I'll ask for the meat, though!

thanks, man. i cook it on med high for about 15 min. it's a lot easier on a gas stove, though.

yeah i love raccoon, it's actually really tasty. you should definitely try it if you get a chance.

My husband and friends shot pheasant and quail and I used those one time...pheasant and dove one batch.

We prefer chicken and sausage or shrimp and sausage. One daughter won't eat shrimp and soon to be daughter in law won't eat shrimp or sausage...she's gonna get a cheese sandwich!

There was a "gumbo fest" in Galveston a couple of weeks ago. Some of the "gumbos" available for tasting was horrible.

It really got me hankering for some quality gumbo. After this thread, I may have to make some this weekend.

Also, regarding finding duck. Try an Asian grocery store. Its probably half the price of a central market duck.

I've always used bacon grease to make a roux.

Hell of a lot better than vegetable oil.

hmmm... bacon grease.
My mom and grandmother always had a jar of bacon drippings next to the stove. I don't have that now, so it might be a little harder. Worth figuring out a way to get some, though!

And I'll have to find an asian market and look for a duck. Never thought of that.

Might be making gumbo this weekend now!

if i'm doing duck or chicken, i'll brown the sausage and chicken and use the drippings to make a roux.

Oh yeah, always brown the meat first. Gotta get that nice crusty caramelization going on. And it leaves a bunch of delicious fond in the pan.

I may have to go buy a duck for my gumbo this weekend.

1) Butter for roux.......bacon fat rocks generally but (see sig), sadly this is just not the place - butter is the king of browning - and becomes more complex as it gains color - I did bacon grease last batch and it was not as good

2) Gumbo is Creole, Raccoon is Cajun.

3) + eleventy for fro anytime is gumbo time!

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Either you love bacon, or you're wrong.

Butter for a dark chocolate roux? Seems like the proteins would burn at that high of a heat. Clarified maybe, or for a light roux (I have a creole onion soup recipe that uses a blond roux, and I may need to try that). How dark do you get your roux?

Don't get me wrong... I love butter! Not like Paula Dean loves butter, but fairly close.

I use oil for gumbo roux. I also take mt roux all the way to black.

For gumbo, roux with oil. That's vegetable oil or corn oil. But if you served me one made with olive oil I'd probably still eat it. For étouffée, roux with butter. Really, just use whatever you've got handy. You're forgiven either way as soon as you hand me a spoon.

I don't use sherry in gumbo, but I do add it to étouffée and turtle soup.

If you don't hunt, find a friend who does and trade him a pot of gumbo for some of his ducks. If that's not an option, go to an Asian market.

Cold weather isn't necessary. You should be making this stuff all year long.

And by all means, don't thin it out too much. It's not supposed to be thick, but it's not supposed to be watery either (you can almost get away with a thin seafood gumbo, but it's not my preference). There is a guy from New Orleans who has a food trailer here in Austin, and his gumbo is basically flavorless brown water with a scoop of rice. I've never been so disappointed. Nice guy, bad food. I've heard his po-boys are ok, but anybody can do that if they have good bread.

The best advice I've ever been given regarding a dark roux was a simple reminder that the ingredients are cheap. Don't be scared. When you think you've got it, turn the fire down and go a little longer. It's tougher to burn one than you think. But if you do burn it, throw it out, start over, and know that if you've never burned a roux before, you probably haven't tried to get it dark enough anyway.

quote:

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2) Gumbo is Creole, Raccoon is Cajun.

---

well, there are a few different definitions of creole.

originally, creole simply meant a person of french heritage born in a french colony. now most people tend to recognize it as non-whites of french ancestry, but there are whites in louisiana who consider themselves creole, cause their ancestors came straight from france, not from canada.

anywho, you'll find country people of any color in louisiana and east texas who eat raccoon, not just cajuns.