Gumbo recipes

Damn I am hungry!

I think thickness just depends on how you make the roux. More flour or thickening agent, the thicker the roux. The longer you cook it the darker it gets.

 

any recipe you use won't reach it's maximum potential unless you make your own roux and stock. It's soup, afterall. It's all about the stock.

 

What make the difference in thickness is the amount of roux, okra, or file.

Here are the steps of making a good gumbo.

1. Make the roux with equal parts flour and fat. The fat can be oil, shortening or lard. Lard tastes the best. For a 8 quart pot of gumbo, I generally use 3/4 cups of each. Heat flour in the oil on stove top and stir constantly until the roux is between the color of milk chocolate and dark chocolate. If you see any dark specs, your roux is ruined and you need to start all over. Another way of doing it is by placing the roux mixture in a 350 oven for 1 hour 45 minutes while stirring every 15 minutes or so.

2. Add holy trinity of 2 parts diced onion, 1 part diced celery, 1 part diced green peppers. I usually use 2 cup, 1 cup, 1 cup. Cook about 10 minutes until onions start breaking down. You can also add okra if you want. You want to cook the okra until all the stringy stuff disappears.

3. Add stock. The stock can be anything from chicken broth to seafood stock made from boiling shrimp and crab shells.

4. Add spices. Thyme, bay leaves, oregano, and cayenne paper are typical. Cook for 30 minutes or so.

5. Add protein and turn off the heat and let sit while protein cooks or heats up. Sausage, seafood, or browned chicken work.

6. Add file if you didn't use okra and you want it to be thicker.

 

To add to this, if you are putting chicken in the Gumbo, you can extract fat from it. Buy a whole chicken. Roast the chicken first and collect the fat. Add enough lard to create rockbox's ratio of flour to fat. You can also render your own lard. Buy some uncured pig fat. Fiesta is good for this. Just place it in the oven at 350.

repeat: The best seafood gumbo will require you to make your own seafood stock. You might actually want to use butter for the fat in you roux, as well. It will take a lot longer to get it right color, though. Butter has a low flash point vs oil/lard.

 

here's the Alton Brown explanation of roux, and the scientific explanation of how more cooking of starch reduces thickening power but adds flavor, and how you can easily overdo/ruin it.

he explains all this as intro to his recommendation to use the oven. I don't think he really suggests doing that himself, though...Alton often explains things that are easiest for the masses, but he wouldn't actually do.

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I use this recipe.

Have been making it for 15 years, and my father has been making it for about 10 years prior to that. Can't be beat.

sub out the protein for whatever you want. Chicken. sausage. seafood. turkey. duck. pick your poison. Just make sure (though not always the case) that the lighter the protein, the darker the rough . . . and vice versa.

Chicken and sausage . . . light

shrimp and crab . . . darker.

get yourself some mahatma rice and go to town.

 

1. If you need a recipe, you're doing it wrong

2. If your gumbo is the color of tomato soup, you're doing it wrong

3. Practice.

This is the coonass path.

 

My mom does a great chicken and sausage one. Message me and I'll make her send it to me.

Seafood? Try Treebeards on Thursday. There are just some things that are better professionally made.

 

No, it's the Swedish path.

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It doesn't matter since you are making stock. If the stock reduces to less than 5 1/2 cups, then just add water to it.

 

There is nothing in this world better than a good bowl of gumbo. Thanks OP, I will be getting me some gumbo for lunch tomorrow. :grin: