Jeremy’s Dutch Oven Meaty Gumbo
(With Day-Before
Preparation)
Ever since my first trip to New Orleans in the spring of
2008, I’ve loved the taste of gumbo.
Whenever I find it on a menu, I try the many varied recipes one can
encounter around the country.
The recipe I typically follow is based on one I found, of
all places, on a souvenir tile I bought during that first trip to New
Orleans. It doesn’t use okra, but
instead uses celery, which avoids that supposedly-slimy texture I’ve heard is
associated with okra. But I must admit
that I’ve never actually tasted okra.
For this post, I’ll outline the way I prepare my gumbo when
cooking for a large group. I often
prepare this meal when hosting a barbecue at my house, and typically pre-cook
the meats and pre-cut the vegetables, staging them in five 1-gallon Ziploc bags,
so they’re ready to be added to the large Dutch oven in stages as follows:
- Butter, Spices &
Vegetables for Sautéing
- Ham (to Fry Before Adding
Stock)
- Meats & Rue
- Shrimp Stock
- Shrimp (to Add Just Before
Serving)
Ingredients
½ Stick Butter or Margarine (For Sautéing Veggies)
1 Pound Bacon, Cooked, Fat Reserved (For the Rue)
5 Stalks Celery
2 Onions
5 Toes Garlic
6 Red and Green Peppers
½ - 1 Cup Flour (For the Rue)
8 Bay Leaves
½ Gallon Shellfish Stock
2 Pounds Andouille or Chorizo Sausage (Hot Italian Sausage
Also Works)
2 Pounds Shrimp (Uncooked)
2 Pounds Chicken
1 Tsp Filé Powder (Ground Sassafras Leaves)
4 Cups Rice
Salt & Pepper to Taste (Probably at Least 1 Tsp of Each)
Day-Before
Preparation
In no particular order…
Cut an entire pound of bacon into 1” strips (cut across all
the slices) and add to a frying pan.
Cook at a medium-high temperature until crispy. Remove the bacon by straining, and save the
fat. (Alternatively, you can just save
the bacon fat from any other time you’re cooking bacon.) Add at least one cup flour and stir
thoroughly. Continue adding flour until
the mixture takes-on the consistency of toothpaste. Fry the mixture over medium-high heat,
stirring constantly, until the rue reaches a light brown color. The final darkness of the rue is your choice
though. Allow to cool, and then store
separately until you cook the gumbo.
Pre-cook the sausage by heating a large frying pan (cast
iron is best) to medium. Using a sharp
knife, cut each link of sausage lengthwise to cut the casing. Remove the casing by sliding it off the
sausage meat (this works better when the sausage is cold). As you fry the sausage, use a wire-type
potato masher to mix and break-up the sausage.
I’ve found this method to be much more effective than cooking the links
and dicing the links post-cooking.
For the chicken, cut into large cubes (1-2”) and fry until
well done. Don’t worry if the chicken
isn’t fully cooked, as you’ll be cooking it in the gumbo later. Cool the meat, and then chop finely, either
by hand, or in a food processor (this method works wonderfully).
Finally, dice the ham (by hand) into small ½” cubes.
You’ll also need to prepare a shellfish stock. It’s best to buy uncooked shrimp so you can
extract the maximum amount of flavor.
Thaw the shrimp and remove the shells.
(Retain the uncooked shrimp…you’ll add them in the final step of cooking
the gumbo.) Add the shells/tails/legs of
the shrimp to a soup pot and add about a half-gallon of water. Heat until boiling, and until the shells turn
red and a foam builds-up. Cool and
strain. Recently, I also used all the
leftover vegetable cuttings for the stock as well (pepper stems & seeds,
onion skins, etc.).
Once all the meats have been prepared and fully-cooled,
place the chicken and sausage in a gallon Ziploc bag and refrigerate. Store the shrimp and ham separately. Finally, store the shrimp stock in a
leak-proof container (or freeze it).
Chop all vegetables (peppers, celery, onions, and garlic)
and store together in a gallon Ziploc bag.
Also add to this bag the butter for frying, a minimum amount of salt and
pepper (though you could just add this later), and a pinch of gumbo filé.
Cooking the Gumbo
In a very large Dutch oven (or large soup pot), melt the
butter and then fry the vegetables until soft.
When the vegetables are nearly cooked, add the ham to fry for a little
bit. Add the bag of chicken/sausage and
the shrimp stock, along with 2 Tbsp of the bacon-flavored rue (or more if
desired). Add bay leaves, salt and
pepper, and simmer for at least a half hour.
Add additional water as needed (when I cook gumbo, I prepare it to the
consistency of a thick beef stew). When
ready to serve, add the shrimp and cook for about five minutes.
Serve over a bed of rice (for thicker gumbo) or as a
soup/stew (for thinner gumbo).
If you're reading this blog, and have your own recipe, I'd be interested to hear how this recipe matches with yours. And more importantly, how does it taste?
