Gumbo

Cajun country

I had the opportunity to live in southwest Louisiana (New Iberia) for a few years and experienced many fine gumbos. The region is Cajun country. Cajuns are descendents of the French Acadians who migrated from Acadia in Quebec, Canada. Cajun is an English misunderstanding of the French pronunciation of Acadien. Their history is rich and their culture has been influenced by Native Americans, African slaves and their descendents, and other Europeans that settled in southern Louisiana. The cuisine is spectacular and includes some of my favorite dishes such as crawfish etouffee, creole jumbalaya, shrimp creole, Cajun meatloaf, boiled crawfish, and, believe it or not, fried frog legs. I will give recipes for these in later articles.

Ingredients (makes 8 servings):

• ½ cup canola oil (the Cajuns will use lard which gives a wonderful taste but I will keep
this healthy – I do sneak in some bacon below)
• ½ cup all-purpose flour
• 3 onions, chopped
• 3 red bell peppers, chopped (remove seeds)
• 4 celery stalks, chopped
• 8 garlic cloves
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• ½ teaspoon red pepper (cayenne)
• ½ cup dry white wine (e.g., pinot grigio or chardonnay)
• 3 teaspoons fresh thyme, chopped
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 - 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes including the juice (I like Hunts)
• 2 – 8 ounce bottles of clam juice
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon parsley
• 2 pounds andouille sausage (sold in most supermarkets) cut into ½ inch slices crosswise
• 1 pound skinless and boneless chicken (dark meat from the thighs and/or legs is best)
• 1 pound of cut okra (you can buy it frozen in the bag)
• 3 slices bacon
• 2 pounds shrimp peeled and deveined (my Cajun friends would never tolerate deveined)
• 2 cups white rice cooked
• Salt and pepper to taste

Making the roux

Roux is made from heating the oil (lard if you are in Cajun country – I make up for this by adding bacon later) and mixing it with flour. In a large Dutch oven heat the oil on medium high until it is hot. Add the flour and stir continuously until it becomes dark red to reddish brown (should take about 5 minutes). If you burn it and it becomes black, throw it out and start over.

Gumbo base

Add the onions, bell peppers, and celery to the roux and cook about 20 minutes on medium high (the onions should be soft).

Colorful beginnings

Add the garlic, lemon juice, and cayenne, stir, and cook for 2 minutes. Add the wine, thyme and bay leaves. Peel the leaves off of the thyme stalks and use only the leaves and very tender stalks.

Fresh thyme

Garlic and thyme

Add the tomatoes, clam juice, chicken broth, parsley, sausage and chicken and simmer for about 15 minutes. Make sure the chicken is cooked.

Andouille sausage

Fried okra

In a separate pan, cook the bacon until crisp, remove, and place on a paper towel. Place the okra in the pan with the bacon fat and fry until soft. Chop the bacon and add it along with the cooked okra and cooked rice to the Dutch pot and simmer for another 10 minutes. This completes your gumbo base which can be made up to two days in advance. In fact, I like to make my base a day ahead of time to improve the flavors.

Finally

If you have placed the base in the refrigerator overnight make sure you warm it before proceeding. Add the shrimp and cook for about 5 minutes until the shrimp is done. Overcooking the shrimp will make them mushy so be careful. You can substitute shrimp with crab. Add salt and pepper. Voila!

Gumbo

J. Botticelli