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Acadian Creole Gumbo.
Hey foodophiles. Welcome to my kitchen, please feel free to help yourself to a beverage of your choice and anything you care to munch from the fridge. I recommend the ceviche with guildillas, but that's just me. While you get settled, let me take a moment to thank
remembrance for stopping me just before publishing this diary Thursday evening so it could happen here instead. KTK is a much better venue, indeed.
My wife's people are from Louisiana. Lake Charles, Lafayette, Opelousas and New Iberia to be exact, with extended family in NOLA and elsewhere around the state. Over the years the cooks in the family recognized that I was a serious student of the culinary arts and could pull my weight. I threw myself into creole and acadian food and this is how I was taught to do it by the family masters.
You know Louisiana people are pretty serious about their food, so believe me when I tell you that this white boy is the only one on the black side of the tracks that is asked to go into Mo Mo's kitchen and please do the cooking. Yes, I am bragging. I learned that in Louisiana, too.
I won't give away all my secrets here. For instance, you won't be reading about how I make my spice blend, but I will show you a packaged blend that is a pretty good substitute. And I won't tell you how I make my roux, but I will show you a good jarred equivalent.
I will also give you a couple secrets that get left out of a lot of recipes and can be the difference between good and great.
Jump the pistolette for more.
Gumbo is good for you.
First off, please forgive the pictures. They are not all clear. I "document" my cooking as a visual reminder because I need to see it sometimes to remember a thing or two I liked that I changed. It's just how I operate.
All measurements are in bunches and approximate. It's home cooking, after all and done by instinct and experience. I don't bake cakes so I rarely measure.
Recipe serves 14-ish (sorry, big eaters in big numbers. Adjust accordingly. You do the math)
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Ingredients. You will need:
Couple bunches of green onions chopped across the grain.
3 large white onions rough diced.
two heads of peeled garlic one smashed and chopped one whole clove.
three large bell peppers rough diced
6 or 8 large stalks of celery chopped
4 pounds of andouille and/or other sausage
3 pounds of gulf shrimp
5 or 6 pounds cleaned blue crabs
3 pounds of trimmed drumsticks.
few pounds of turkey necks.
1/4 1.75 bottle of white wine (dryer the better)
8 cups good chicken stock (I make my own and freeze it so I always have it. If you buy it get quality and less salt, you are adding salt to control.)
cheese cloth
6 or so bay leaves
fresh ground black pepper
quality cayenne
salt
oil
half pound of butter
1.25 oz of ground dried shrimp (this can be hard to find in some locations).
Long-grain Louisiana rice cooked properly. * rice instructions at the bottom.
Louisiana ground shrimp. Essential to the flavor profile.
First, set to boil in lightly salted water the turkey necks. Boil on medium for an hour or so, skimming off the scum, until they start getting soft but nowhere near stringy. You want that to happen in the gumbo. Incidentally, you know the gumbo is ready when you find poultry strings of meat inside of the crab shell.
Bawl 'dem necks.
Also set to boil in 2 qts cold water all of the shrimp shells from peeled and deveined shrimp tied up in a cheesecloth with 4 or 5 bay leaves, peppercorns and one head of peeled and smashed garlic (a whole head, not a clove). THIS is a secret that gets left out of recipes for a serious gumbo, and
if you do this your gumbo will always be better than one that does not utilize the shell. It's a basic.
Skim the scum as it forms, throw that nastiness out. It will ruin your flavor.
Boil as long as it takes to get all the other ingredients ready.
Shrimp broth.
Then rough cut/dice your onion, pepper and celery. This is The Trinity. There is no gumbo without it.
Trinity.
Mix shrimp stock with the chicken stock and set to a slow boil.
Get the heaviest large pot you have and add two sticks of butter and a little oil and heat till just before the butter starts to bubble. (The cast iron in the picture was a Christmas present from my uncle-in-law who got 2 sets from CITGO for a 30 year gift. He's a petrol engineer and the pots were specially commissioned by CITGO from a foundry in Baton Rouge. They have a relief CITGO logo and are the heaviest pots I have ever seen.).
Throw in the Trinity and a whole head of smashed and chopped garlic. Sprinkle with a small amount of salt and fresh pepper and toss in a couple bay leaves. Cook till translucent.
Then add the roux to a sizzling trinity and stir in with a little shrimp stock until evenly distributed. This will taste like burned flour (because it is) and is bitter. This is normal. Once mixed, turn it off.
Translucent trinity.
Here is where you can really mess up gumbo. If you have too much roux the gumbo will be bitter and harsh. Too little and it will be thin and unappetizing. It is all trial and error, and of course I have made some messed up gumbo. It gets eaten, but you know it isn't the best when people say "thank you" without telling you "you put your foot in it.". The key is not to add any other ingredients beyond the trinity until you get to the flavor profile you want. It takes a while.
A good jarred roux.
Mix translucent trinity with combined stocks in your large heavy pot and set to a rolling boil. Add one bunch of cut up green onions.
If you have too little roux, that just adding a bit more to fix it. I will cook stock, broth, roux and trinity until I know it has the right taste. It will still be bitter but mellowing, until you add some meats and crab, when it will mellow a lot as the flavors blend. Color from the one above is frankly a little light. A shade darker would be better. How much to use? for this recipe from a jar use about half the jar, adding a bit at a time so you don't over do it. Like salt, you can always add more later but you can't take it out. If you do happen to add too much, add more chicken broth till it is right.
Tony Chachere's.
Seasoned chicken drums.
Toss in the cut up sausage, ground shrimp, and chicken legs. Chicken is well seasoned with Tony Chachere's or another blend of your choice. Slow boil this for maybe half an hour, then add the crabs, 5 or 6 bay leaf, a cut up white onion, a little more ground pepper, the wine, about a three pinches of cayenne, any leftover veggies that didn't make it in the first time. Add another bunch of cut green onion. Cook for another 60 min or so on a simmer.
Cleaned blue crabs.
Yummy sausage.
Now it is time to adjust your seasoning. Check the flavor. It should have deepened and become much less bitter and more complex. Salt and cayenne to taste (gumbo is not a "spicy" dish. Be careful with the peppers.). Add more roux if necessary but if you do it will fall in clumps and burn at the bottom, so liquify it in a separate bowl before it goes in.
After it simmers for another min or so check the flavors again and repeat if necessary. Once you have the taste you like, throw in the shrimp.
Gulf brown shrimp, head on.
This is the last step, you want to serve no longer than 10 min or so after adding the shrimp so they aren't overcooked. Remember this simmering now, not boiling. Please avoid the temptation to stir the pot a whole lot. This will break up you chicken and you will wish you hadn't when it comes time to serve. You do need to stir, but very slow and from the bottom of the pot. Be gentle.
Now it is time to serve, but check to be sure by the turkey necks are soft at the vertebrae, and if there are strings of poultry inside of the crab shells. If so, you know it is ready.
*A note about rice
You should use Louisiana grown rice. Choose a long grain variety. When you serve there should be about a cup of rice per dish, but cook enough for leftovers the next day and the next. Or make a batch each time until the gumbo is finished. Either way please make good rice. Not sticky.
A fool-proof way (for me) is to rinse the rice three or four times until the water runs mostly clear. Then add water till it reaches the first knuckle with the tip of your index finger resting on the top of the rice. Bring to boil then turn to lowest setting and check in 20-25 min. Should be perfect and a little dryish on top, grains fluff separately.
Serve hot with garlic baguette and any other side you want.
Notice there are no tomatoes or okra in this dish. This is not from New Orleans, that's a different gumbo. This is southwestern Acadian creole gumbo. Lafayette style. Gumbo filé is up to you. We don't use it.
And that is it. Well, not really. It takes practice, but I guarantee if your take your time and take care with what you do, you will come out with something satisfying and that people will appreciate.
Thanks for reading. Happy cooking. See you in comments.
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