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24 September 2005

It's Gumbo Day at Casa Taz! Kids, be happy! I'm making my world famous voodoo gumbo today... And here's where I'll share my personal recipe. [More:]

The major secret to incredible gumbo is the roux. This is what separates the weak-ass stuff from the wonderful elixir that makes you want to slap your mama. Otherwise great chefs have said that they just can't manage to reproduce the flavor of real Louisiana (et al) gumbo... The roux is why.

To make a great roux, you must be brave, patient, and persistent. I used to spend as long as 45 minutes making the roux... though now I do it in about 15 or 20 minutes. The only difference is your heat setting. Here's how I make it: I put 1/2 cup of olive oil (you don't need to use olive oil, but I do) in the bottom of a large flat frying pan (or enough oil to cover the bottom, but not less than a 1/2 cup), and turn the heat up to medium high. Then I put one cup of flour into a sifter and as soon as the oil is hot, I begin sifting in the flour, blending and stirring with a wooden spoon. Keep sifting and blending 'til you've got all the flour in the pan... then keep stirring and scraping and stirring and scraping and stirring. You want to keep it going until it gets to be a very, very dark brown color, like this.

Your entire goal here is to get it as dark as possible without burning it. So you can use a lower heat and cook it longer, with less risk of burning, or you can use a higher heat, as I do, and never leave it for a second. Stir, stir, stir.

And this, boys and girls, is the only great secret of gumbo - the rest you can play with and change if you like. You can make shrimp or crawfish gumbo, or vegetarian gumbo with lots of greens, or pretty much anything.

Today, I'm making chicken and sausage gumbo.

The first thing I do is cut the vegetables. Today I used two large red peppers, two large green bell peppers, two large onions, a small bunch of parsley, and three toes of garlic, all chopped, and two cupped handfuls of chopped celery, with leaves (our celery is different here from regular U.S. celery - but I think I used to use two or three stalks). Put all the cut up veggies together in bowl or on your chopping board.

Now the chicken: I use four chicken leg-thigh parts, which I shake up in a bag with flour, salt, pepper, powdered garlic and hot paprika to thoroughly coat the chicken parts.

While I'm making the roux, I fry the chicken in the same big soup pot that I'm going to make the gumbo in. The frying doesn't need to be perfect, because the chicken is going to cook for a long time in the soup. Basically, you just want to get them nice and browned. When they are done, put them on a plate with paper towel underneath, and throw out any remaining oil from the pot.

(Or you can do this step ahead of time, and use the remaining oil when making your roux.)

As soon as the roux reaches that magic dark mahogany color, I dump all the chopped vegetables into the roux frying pan, and quickly stir and toss with the wooden spoon until the veggies are all coated and have basically gathered up all the roux onto themselves. The aroma that explodes at this point will give you some clue about the treat that lies ahead.

Now dump the vegetables-and-roux and the fried chicken parts into the soup pot, and cover with water. I use about three quarts of water. Then slice up about a pound of smoked sausage and add that to the pot. (If you can find some Cajun Tasso, throw a little of that in, as well!) Season as you please. I use one or two tablespoons of hot sauce, three tablespoons of worcestershire, a little cayenne (or any hot, powdered) pepper, salt, black pepper, white pepper, and two or three bay leaves.

Simmer it for two or three hours (edited to say: "actually, boil for a while at first, then simmer". The chicken definitely must be falling from the bone), then remove the bones and serve over cooked rice. I sprinkle filé powder over mine in the individual bowls before serving - but if you've included okra among your vegetables, don't use filé.

It will end up looking something like this.

It's magnificent the first day, but the second day is when you go to heaven.

If you make this, and you don't love me foreverafterwards, then you're just not right, Jack. Get yourself back to the morgue.
I love you, taz.
I know what I'm making next weekend. My god, that looks amazing.

We need a metachat cookbook.
posted by kellydamnit 24 September | 11:20
Thanks, taz! I was going to make my own chicken-and-shrimp version with okra and file today, but yours would be a welcome departure from the usual. Will definitely give it a try. Thanks for the tip on speed-roux, too.
posted by go dog go 24 September | 11:46
Iron Chef taz would kick all the other Iron Chef asses I am thinking.
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies 24 September | 11:56
* swoon-age *
posted by mudpuppie 24 September | 12:10
heeheee...it's like I've wandered deep into the American Alice in Wonderland......hard to explain what I mean - unfamiliar or at least romantic-ish words --- you know what I mean -- the foreign exotic thing...but it's a good thing!

First question is --- what do you mean by sausage? It's a kind of a generic word. I can't imagine you mean like sausages we eat for breakfast or whatever. Do you mean like cured meat/salami or something??

2. If you've just got the roux (hehee) and veggies cookin', what aroma of the final product is being produced or did I miss some seasoning you added before that (ignore this I guess - the obviousness comes with the cookin' no doubt) ?

3.Does the filé/sassafrass (heh) leaves have another name at all?? Strange they say they were used in the past for ginger beer. Do they have a flavour? What is it?

I only ask because, although I've heard of sassafrass, I've never seen it - it's one of those vaguely familiar words from tv or something. We must have okra I guess, but it would be an exotic I think (although really, we grow or can grow everything here).

But it sounds yumbo - I'm askin' for practical as well as educational reasons. I want to make it (never ever seen gumbo offered here -- I think I first heard 'of it' in the soup nazi Seinfeld episode).

Am I sounding like an ijit? Heh. Bloody foreigners.
posted by peacay 24 September | 12:11
Hm...root beer is also an unfamiliar (except the name) flavour....that won't explain the filé taste for me. Oh...is there any other substitute, just by the by?
posted by peacay 24 September | 12:15
Maybe it would be just as easy to cook it and airmail it. Thanks.
posted by peacay 24 September | 12:16
I'll be right over.
posted by puddinghead 24 September | 12:36
heh. Don't worry peacay... They are all natural questions.

By sausage, I mean something like this. I usually use turkey sausage when I can find it here, but that's not traditional. Traditional is pork sausage. Whatever you use, it's important that it be smoked sausage.

The aroma that happens at the time you throw the veggies into the hot roux is just the aroma from the vegetables being slightly quick-cooked like that. There are no spices happening at this point... But it's an amazing moment. Perhaps my favorite moment (besides the first bite on the second day!) of making gumbo.

If you've done stir-fry at all, it's something similar to the aroma that arises when you do that with vegetables.

About the filé: it's dried, powdered, leaves of the sassafras tree.

Something like root beer ("Sarsparilla", I guess) used to be made from the root. Filé really doesn't taste like root beer... it just adds a nice additional fillip of flavor - another subtle layer, and it also thickens the soup in the bowl a bit, but it's not necessary. There's no substitution that I know of, but okra also works as a thickening agent, and if you like it, is a great thing in gumbo.

My gumbo always turns out fairly thick anyway, so I just like the filé for it's nice bit of flavor (which I can't really describe). When people send me things from the U.S., I usually ask for filé, grits, Games Magazine, and triple antibiotic ointment.

BTW, both Cajun and New Orleans Creole cultures arise directly or indirectly from the French, and "roux" is a French cooking term.
posted by taz 24 September | 12:44
*tags along behind puddinghead*

I'll do the dishes, too. Haysoos, but I am starving now.
posted by Frisbee Girl 24 September | 12:50
What do you drink with gumbo? (Am I the only American on MeCha who has never had gumbo?)
posted by Frisbee Girl 24 September | 12:52
Drink anything you like with gumbo... I don't think anything officially goes with it.

If I were pressed, I'd say white wine. Gumbo is usually made with seafood or poultry... that's the only reason I say that. But the dark roux gumbo is definitely more than hearty enough to support a red wine... and beer pretty much always works. Personally, I just drink water; I don't want no other flavor (except good bread and green salad) messing with my gumbo. ;)
posted by taz 24 September | 13:07
Thanks heaps for all that taz. I'll have to do a food reconnaissance trip this week - I might learn that it was just me that was ignor'nt. Otherwise I'm comin' over.
posted by peacay 24 September | 13:31
No probs, pk!

By the way, I should add that if any of you hate rice (omg!!!), I also really love gumbo served over lightly toasted rounds of French bread.
posted by taz 24 September | 13:39
and you don't love me foreverafterwards

we all love you already anyway, taz.

but thanks, it's fingerlickingly awesome
posted by matteo 24 September | 14:05
Speaking of gumbo-appropriate sausage, I found this page. While Jacob's is probably closed for a while (assuming it's still there at all), there's a pretty good description of what I think taz is talking about.
posted by cali 24 September | 14:20
Yes, you are right, cali, luv!

I've had some problems getting sausage I'm happy with here in Greece, because what they call "country sausage" is usually flavored with anise to some degree, and that totally doesn't work with my gumbo aesthetic. I'm pleased to find any basic, not highly flavored, smoked pork sausage here, and will always choose a turkey sausage if I can find it, mostly because I'm not really a big sausage fan.

But real Louisiana sausage is the way to go if you can get it. Andouille is the bomb in gumbo.
posted by taz 24 September | 14:33
So, if you use okra, you add it with the rest of the veggies or later? And must you use two different cooking vessels?
posted by kenko 24 September | 14:53
If I were using okra, I guess I'd add it with the rest of the vegetables...

I don't really know the answer to this, because (quelle horreur!), I don't like okra, so I never use it myself.

Just to be clear... You don't have to use either filé or okra. I, personally, happen to love the little added twist of filé, but it's not a big deal. If your gumbo is much more soupy-liquidy, then it might make a certain texture difference, or including okra might make a difference there.

My gumbo ends up cooking down to about... at least three-quarters, or more like two-thirds of the original volume, and is nice and thick-ish, anyway.

I only use two cooking vessels: the large, flat frying pan for the roux (and hot-mixing the vegetables), and the big soup pot, where I fry the chicken and cook the soup. It could be that something further is needed if you use okra... but that's out of my area of expertise. Sorry!
posted by taz 24 September | 15:20
that's so weird, i was thinking of asking for gumbo resources as i am hard pressed to acquire the ingredients
posted by ethylene 24 September | 16:08
Thanks for that link cali. I'm still a bit unsure of things but that's prolly more to do with not being in a shop with the goods. I don't think I've ever seen smoked sausage, but I've had smoked turkey a fair few times in the past.
It's funny talking to westerners about 'unusual' foods, outside of trade names. This will be my first bookmarked thread from Mecha MeThinx. Have an extra helping taz! *mwaah!*
posted by peacay 24 September | 16:14
Heh. I just made a HUGE chicken, shrimp and sausage gumbo two days ago. It was for my inlaws from Mississippi who have had nothing but MREs for the past three weeks. It was great.

No one spoke during lunch. They just sat there and ate and savored the flavors.

I made it the day before (with okra) so that when they had it, it was thick and swampy. One of my best gumbos, if I do say so myself.

Just had a big bowl of it for lunch today. It gets better and better every day.

You've got a great recipe there, taz.
posted by ColdChef 24 September | 16:38
Thanks, taz, it's incredible. I subbed shrimp for the sausage, added a shrimp broth and beer reduction, subbed chicken broth for the water. Purty larrupin'...
posted by go dog go 24 September | 21:32
I'm going to a wedding! || AN ENTIRE TREE HAS LITERALLY FALLEN, TUCKER!

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