I've been making gumbo for fifteen years, since my brief stint as a New Orlenian in the mid nineties. I made it for my Happy hour crowd at the Hole in the Wall in Austin TX every week. I served it while I was performing. I got to try many different gumbos and settled on my mother basic recipe from there.
begin with a small green pepper or 3/4 of a med one will do, one small onion, and a stalk of celery ---> the holy trinity. fine dice and sweat those babies in a pot for a good while. I like to get 'em down to moosh but no brown burning. some salt helps them sweat. I add several choppped garlic cloves to this half way through.
"Who needs a roux?" well ya need a lil something ya do. I tried an old cheatin cajun trick this time around mostly cuz I'm my own dish washer these days and I'm feeling like washing less dishes today. I dropped a TBS of butter into my mush, turned up the heat and sprinkled some sorghum flour (gluten free) over top and stirred. when it got a little brown not burned and was ready for some help I added hot fresh chicken stock and whole smoked chipotle pepper.... add frozen cut okra (I like a lot of okra) and let it rest like that on simmer. I cook this until there is no distinguishable vegetable in there, just the balls from the okra floating around. add cayenne
here in TX we like to smoke a lot of things. I picked up some specials at the HEB this afternoon and decided to smoke some organic chicken thighs, 2lbs of jumbo shrimp, and some delicious jalapeno sausage. I smoked over hickory mostly but there was a block of mesquite in that fire flavoring too.
when these were done smoking I added the chopped sausage and cut the thighs in to but size pieces added to the gumbo with the bone. peeled the shrimp and diced then and added them to the mix.
the peeled shells were thrown into a saucepan of boiling water and blended with a hand mixed, reduced by a lot, strained and then added to the gumbo. you can salt it now. slightly under salt it to taste as you will reduce a bit longer.
from start to finish about 4 hrs had passed, I added some filé (only about 2 capfuls) and let it rest. I add more filé to mine when I eat it. Too much will make it slimy and even worse, stringy and wont save well in the fridge or freezer. We had a few bowls but it's always better the next day... it is... it was.
begin with a small green pepper or 3/4 of a med one will do, one small onion, and a stalk of celery ---> the holy trinity. fine dice and sweat those babies in a pot for a good while. I like to get 'em down to moosh but no brown burning. some salt helps them sweat. I add several choppped garlic cloves to this half way through.
"Who needs a roux?" well ya need a lil something ya do. I tried an old cheatin cajun trick this time around mostly cuz I'm my own dish washer these days and I'm feeling like washing less dishes today. I dropped a TBS of butter into my mush, turned up the heat and sprinkled some sorghum flour (gluten free) over top and stirred. when it got a little brown not burned and was ready for some help I added hot fresh chicken stock and whole smoked chipotle pepper.... add frozen cut okra (I like a lot of okra) and let it rest like that on simmer. I cook this until there is no distinguishable vegetable in there, just the balls from the okra floating around. add cayenne
here in TX we like to smoke a lot of things. I picked up some specials at the HEB this afternoon and decided to smoke some organic chicken thighs, 2lbs of jumbo shrimp, and some delicious jalapeno sausage. I smoked over hickory mostly but there was a block of mesquite in that fire flavoring too.
when these were done smoking I added the chopped sausage and cut the thighs in to but size pieces added to the gumbo with the bone. peeled the shrimp and diced then and added them to the mix.
the peeled shells were thrown into a saucepan of boiling water and blended with a hand mixed, reduced by a lot, strained and then added to the gumbo. you can salt it now. slightly under salt it to taste as you will reduce a bit longer.
from start to finish about 4 hrs had passed, I added some filé (only about 2 capfuls) and let it rest. I add more filé to mine when I eat it. Too much will make it slimy and even worse, stringy and wont save well in the fridge or freezer. We had a few bowls but it's always better the next day... it is... it was.
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