I’ve been busy lately and haven’t been able to post much so I thought I’d throw this crazy multi topic thread out there to share a recipe (requested by MadMax) with the bbs as well as a couple stories of my past few days. <b>Gumbo</b> Gumbo is not the easiest of dishes to cook and may take years to perfect but practice makes perfect, and unless you scorch the roux it’s almost always eatable. This recipe is derived from a family recipe, which has been adapted to taste. The nice thing about gumbo is almost anything goes, so try it once then adapt it to your personal taste. This gumbo is more of a Cajun gumbo than a creole gumbo since it has no tomatoes or okra. Ingredients: Meats: 1 lb Sausage – We use chapel hill or holmes anouille sausage. 2-3 pounds boneless skin less chicken breast 2 lb shrimp, peeled (if desired) 2 cups Lumb Crab meat if available Vegetables: 1 1/2 cup Onion (or aprox 1 large yellow onion) 1 cup green onion (1 bundle as sold in the produce dept) 1/4 cup parsley (recipe calls for 1/8 cup bell pepper and 1/8 cup chopped celery but we leave these out) Spices: 1 Tbs Salt 1 Tbs black pepper 1 Tbs worcestershire sauce 1 Tbs Garlic salt 10 drops Tabasco Sauce 3 or 4 bay leaves Knoriko hot ‘n spicy creole seasoning (for the chicken to taste) Roux: 1/2 cup peanut oil (peanut oil burns at a higher temp than vegetable oil and you don’t want to scorch the roux so use peanut oil) 1/2 cup flour Step 1 The Vegs Chop the vegetables and set aside Step 2 Brown the meat Slice (I actually cube) the sausage and brown in a frying pan Slice chicken into strips and season generously with konriko then brown in the dripping from the sausage if there is any or brown in just a little bit of olive oil Set both aside Step 3 The Roux In a large cast iron skillet add flour and peanut oil. Over medium heat <VERY IMPORTANT> Stir constantly </VERY IMPORTANT> until the roux reaches a dark chocolate appearance (aprox 30 mins to 1 hour). The darker the better, but if it smells scorched, throw it out and start over. Step 4. The Vegs part 2 Lower heat to med-low and add the chopped vegetables to the roux and continue to stir until they are carmelized (3-5 mins) then add 2 cups of water, stir and simmer for 5 mins then pour into large stock pot. Step 5. Into the pot Bring the contents of the stockpot to a boil then add 4 cups of water, all the spices, and tthe sausage and chicken. Lower heat, cover and simmer. Add hot water 1 cup at a time up to desired amount (4-6 cups more is aprox how much I add) as the gumbo simmers. (add water slowly over time to avoid separation and maintain consistency) If adding shrimp and/or crab add aprox 1 hour before serving. Simmer no less than 4 hours total. Serve over rice and enjoy. <b>The Three Wise Men</b> I was walking through my dining room Monday evening and I looked down and noticed the 3 Wise Men from the nativity set on a small step stool we use as a “timeout” seat for my 2.5 year old daughter. I called her in the room and our conversation went like this… Me: Maggie, what is this? Maggie: The three wise men. Me: Well what are they doing here? Maggie: They are in Time Out. Me: What did they do? Maggie: They hit someone. Me: Who? Maggie: Baby Jesus. Me: Oh is that right? (fighting back laughter) Maggie: Yes sir She then turned around and went back to whatever she was doing before I interrupted leaving me to wonder why baby Jesus got jumped by the 3 wise men under my Christmas tree. <b>The Powerdancers</b> As some of you may recall I bought my daughter a Steve Francis Playmaker 6 pack of tickets for Christmas. The game against the Kings Tuesday was the second of 6 games. I bought the $10 tickets because I’m a master at the halftime unused corporate ticket upgrade and for my daughter just going to the game is an experience. My daughter had the people around us laughing out loud with great comments like, “you gotta finish Cat, come on Moochie, and Yeah Yao Ming” . We were enjoying the game from our cheap seats and I was looking for unused corporate seats for our halftime upgrade when I noticed the 2 seats on the second row right behind the “reliant energy power fan of the game” were empty. I watched the seats the whole first half and they stayed empty so at the half we made our move. We were sitting pretty right behind the Rockets bench and Maggie had a new group of admirers in our new seats with her knowledge of the rockets and comment like, “there is moochie with the big hair, Steve Francis is number 3, that’s Cuttino Mobley, they call him the Cat”. In the 4th period the guy from the rockets came over and was telling the “power fans” in front of us to smile and wave at the camera during the next timeout and over heard Maggie talking about the Rockets. We were on the big screen when they showed the “power fans” and Maggie really got a kick out of that. Then the Rockets guy turned around and asked me, “think she would go our and Dance with the powerdancers during the next timeout?” I said, “probably not with out me.” He said, “OK follow me.” We went into the tunnel and were first in line so I could still watch the game while we waited. They then lead us onto the baseline and told us to kneel down and wait for the next time out. The game was still going on and I was kneeling on the baseline with my daughter. Yao was so close I could have pulled down his socks. He blocked a shot right there in front of us and my daughter just kept saying, “Yao Ming, Yao Ming Yao Ming Yao Ming” like she was in a trance. They played just over a minuet of game time before the next timeout. When we went out onto the court I was dancing around with her and a powerdancer came over and gave her some pom-poms and danced with us. The timeout flew by the powerdancer gave my daughter a hug and as we left the court I looked over at Calvin Murphy and he smiled and gave me a thumbs up. 2 tickets to the game $20 bucks, 1 bottle water and 1 chicken basket from Pappas $11.25… watching part of the game from the baseline then dancing with your daughter out on the court… priceless.
That's awesome VooDoo. I see that I must learn this trick for getting good seats cheap now, since it won't work in the new arena or later this season for that matter. Thanks for the recipe, my mom is getting a copy as soon as I get back from A&M. I'm curious, where is everybody's favorite place to get Gumbo in Houston. Mine is from Captain Benny's. I think that's the name. The place that looks like a boat. In spanish, we just call it "el barcito." That's the small boat if you didn't know.
cool thread..anything with a recipe is great. nice recipe, but I noticed no mention of serving it with File at the end, as I guess you don't thicken with Ochra, 'eh. being the voodoo man, I guess you are assuming we all know about the File bark. also, I have one improvement, that doesn't add all too much work. Instead of boneless chicken, buy a whole chicken and use the carcass to make chicken stock while you are making the roux. Then use the stock instead of water, in all places that the recipe calls for water. for those who don't see how they could stir a roux for 30-1hr, my mom swears by baking it. I'm not sure of the time, though. I've never done the baking, I do the heay skillett and put it on Highest heat and stir like mad to get it black in 15minutes. Don't try this at home, though kids.
My personal favorite is Floyds Cajun Kitchen on Durham just north of Washington. Let me know how your mom's gumbo turns out.
When I'm feeling especially crazy, I'll do a dark roux in butter. It scorches REAL easy, so it only takes like....forever...to get one done. Sure tastes good though.
Thanks for the post VooDoo, the stories with your kid are great! Those three "wise men" weren't wise enough to not get caught! I'm glad to see your daughter is a big time Rockets fan!
heypartner, ask your mom about baking the roux, i'd like to try it sometime just to see how it works. I've used the chicken stock before and it does turn out just as good. That is the beauty of Gumbo, you can put what ever you want in there and it almost always turns out alright. I had turkey gumbo 2 days after thanksgiving that my father in law made and it tasted much better than I thought it would. Yeah, rockHEAD, you have to raise your kids right. My daughter is already a huge fan and my 8 month old son is decked out in Rockets and Texans gear half the time. My wife quit watching after Hakeem left, so I had to breed my own family of super fans to go and watch the games with me.
Great Post VooDoo you have convinced me that the Aussie Smeg should try to make Gumbo, maybe even tomorrow night, me thinks Mrs Smeg will love it, although i might need some translating of the recipe, here are my stupid outback Aussie questions (heyP feel free to help out too) 1. what the heck do you mean by sausage?? as i have never heard of chapel hill or holmes anouille sausage 2. Never heard of Knoriko hot ‘n spicy creole seasoning, what is it like?? 3. what the Hell is "The Roux " isn't he a wrestler. Please help i want to make Gumbo Smeg
Well Smeg, you should try and add an Aussie touch to the Gumbo by using some local ingredients. By the way, I've got to ask some questions that are left over from my trip to Australia a few years ago. What's with the slice of beet on the hamburgers? Even Mcdonald's (Mackers) sells them that way. Are all the Burger King restaurants called Hungry Jack? Is it normal for there to be a fried egg on a hamburger? I was in Great Keppel island and ordered a burger there that came with an egg on it. Tasted pretty good, though I doubt I'll ever try that here. When you have a barbie, what do you usually make? I've been trying to remember what my host family cooked up. I remember there being sausage, or snags as they were called there, eggs, pineapple, and banana. As Owen, my host parent put it, "beauuuuutiful!!!" I know that NRL and australian rules football are the same thing. What is the sport that is played on a huge oval field and you score by kicking the ball through uprights/a goal?
I love it! The most compelling part of this brilliant trilogy is obviously the third segment. But the comments revolve generally around the recipe. Classic.
Some people have beetroot on the their burgers not all, just another option here. Not sure about why Burger King has called Hugnry Jacks in Australia, but has always been that way. Again the egg is just another option, if you ordered a hamburger with the lot you would usually get egg on it. As for the BBQ, there millions things you can cook on it, i usually cook sausages, marinated meats (including roo), chicken in various forms including kebabs (bits on a stick) and of course seafood. Onion and sliced potato are also cooked on the BBQ and latest trend is too cook sliced veges on the BBQ, like carrot, capsicum, zucchini, eggplant etc. NRL and Aussie Rules Football are not the same, NRL is a form of rugby where one must throw the ball backwards, whereas AFL is a game involving kicking and handballing the ball around a oval field and kicking it through some large upright sticks.
Now back to the GUMBO is this sausage that has been mentioned anything like the Mexican sausage i have used before in chilli, called Cheruzo (not sure on spelling)
No, I'm not sure what the sausage they're talking about is, but Chorizo is different. I've never heard of people putting Chorizo in chili, I've got to try that. Of course, the best way to eat Chorizo, is scrambled with eggs.
thanks VooDoo...my wife's (and my) favorite food is seafood gumbo...if i could learn to make a good gumbo, it would win her affection for years to come!! thanks again
Since Ottomation has expertly answered most of your questions here is a little more help witht he sausage. Chorizo is more of a pan sausage or patty sausage than andouille. Andouille is a link sausage that more like italian sausage in appearance, but a different in content. Any link style sausage sliced (or cubed) then browned would work as described in the recipe. Holmes is just one of the brands of sausage we use from time to time. Here is a link to their website and a sausage sampler that pictures the type of sausage I'm refering to. Let me know if you have any more questions.
You are welcome. Email me if you have any questions when you give it a try. My address is in my profile.
I SAW your daughter with the pompoms during the fan dance! Cute kid! You are definitely raising her right!
