"Goodbye, Joe, me gotta go, me oh my oh.
Me gotta go, pole the pirogue down the bayou.
My Yvonne, sweetest one, me oh my oh.
Son of a gun, gonna have big fun on the bayou.
Me gotta go, pole the pirogue down the bayou.
My Yvonne, sweetest one, me oh my oh.
Son of a gun, gonna have big fun on the bayou.
Jambalaya and a crawfish pie and fillet gumbo
Cause tonight I'm gonna see my ma cher amio.
Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gayo,
Son of a gun, gonna have big fun on the bayou.
Cause tonight I'm gonna see my ma cher amio.
Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gayo,
Son of a gun, gonna have big fun on the bayou.
Thibodeaux, Fontaineaux, the place is buzzin',
Kinfolk come to see Yvonne by the dozen.
Dress in style, go hog wild, and be gayo.
Kinfolk come to see Yvonne by the dozen.
Dress in style, go hog wild, and be gayo.
Son of a gun, gonna have big fun on the bayou."
Soooo…. I used to make gumbo. Then I was misdiagnosed with Celiac disease and that met that the flour used to make any decent roux was POISON! So that was a couple of wasted years but as S.E. Hinton told us in our adolescent literature class, “That Was Then and This Is Now”. So it is cold, fall/winter 2016 time for some gumbo. There is something about chicken and sausage gumbo that is just very comforting in the winter, with a fire when it is cold outside. I made it last week and it was good so I thought it deserved vein writ down. I recommend spending an afternoon making this this. Shop in the morning and get some fresh ingredients, put on some music and start to cook. As always... drink while you cook, like God intended.
Here is a little playlist for you:
Ingredients
1 Chicken
64 oz of chicken stock (two standard 32oz cartons
4 Cloves of Garlic
One lb of andouille (this means a pool cue shaped skin of sausage about 1 foot long)
One lb of polish sausage(this too means a pool cue shaped skin of sausage about 1 foot long)
I large green pepper
1 medium large to large white onion
2-3 stalks of celery
Teaspoon Smoked Paprika
Teaspoon Cayenne
2 Bay Leaves
Teaspoon Black Pepper
Teaspoon Salt
Cup of Green Onions
Teaspoon File Gumbo
Cup of green onions
½ cup of parsley
INSTRUCTIONS
A couple of things about making gumbo. It as I said, it deserves a whole afternoon. It can be a relaxed afternoon. Take two hours to cook your chicken, cut up vegetables and cut up and brown sausage. This is step one and you can do it and then shove everything in the refrigerator including the stock to use later or even the next day. Part 2 is a two hour process but past the first half hour you don't need to do anything so relax. Listen to music or NPR as you work and enjoy the time preparing something that 4-8 of your friends will love. This is a narrative recipe because… you need to feel the gumbo.
"Won't find no etouffe
Mamm never ever could cook it that way
She's all ancien regime
No nouvell cuisine
She cook gumbo
A mighty rad gumbo
It's the only way she can go
Down at the Club Rad Gumbo"-Rad Gumbo/Little Feat
Mamm never ever could cook it that way
She's all ancien regime
No nouvell cuisine
She cook gumbo
A mighty rad gumbo
It's the only way she can go
Down at the Club Rad Gumbo"-Rad Gumbo/Little Feat
STEP ONE-PREPPING ALL YOUR INGREDIENTS
Buy a chicken. The fresher the better but seriously you are boiling it. If in St. Louis go to Soulard Farmers Market on a Saturday morning and go to the meat store there, Frandekas. It will not change your life but it is an excellent experience. This morning i got to watch a woman by 5 cow necks. Evidently they make great stock and soup. But I digress. Buy a chicken. If you want pull the gizzards and whatever out of the cavity. Some people like to things with them later, I normally pitch them so why not boil them to add more flavor to the stock? So you buy a chicken, put it in an appropriate pot and pour over the 64 oz of chicken stock and then add water until chicken is covered. Bring it to a boil and then reduce heat and let it simmer till meat literally can fall off the bone. I like to throw in at least one clove of garlic and any fresh herbs like rosemary or thyme that I can scare up but this too is optional. Boil it 1- ½ hours.
Pull the chicken out and set it on a cutting board, as you pull it out of boiling water let as much juice and whatever drain back into the stock. Let the chicken cool. This will allow it to cool. You might be tempted to rip chicken apart while hot but you will in no particular order:
1. Burn your hands and shout profanities (perhaps in front of your children)
2. Because it is hot you will work quickly and chickens, due to a design flaw have a variety of useless, sharp, splintery bones which can pierce your girlishly soft hands and cause you to spout more profanities (again perhaps in front of your children or even better, other people’s children).
3. You will lose yield.
Once cooled, then start tearing it apart. Since you are supplementing with sausage, be picky. Get all the good white meat and dark meat you can but anything suspicious...pitch it. Since it is chicken you can either throw the remaining carcass, bones and meat into a bag and pitch it, or save the bones, boil them down and boil them down again and then throw them out on the table to tell people’s future.
Strain the remaining broth through a pasta colander to get 95% of percent of the remaining bones, skin, garlic and other crap out of the stock. If you have time, shove it into the fridge for a few hours because then you can skip the fat. If you don't have time, don't worry about it. That fat tastes good, it will just give your gumbo a slightly oilier sheen and that really is not bad and some people may prefer it. This is not a diet or heart smart meal.
Set aside your pile of chicken meat.
This is all you need to yield.
This is what the rest of it looks like. Bag it.
Cut up your two kinds of sausage into bite size or smaller chunks. You might want to dice the andouille a little or cut it differently so if people want to avoid the heat they can be discernible from the milder polish sausage. While your chicken is boiling I like to throw these pieces into a cast iron pan and brown them and get some carmalization on them. This is an optional step.
Cut up one medium to large white onion, one green pepper and de-seed and cut up a jalapeno (or if you like more heat leave the seeds in, it is only one jalapeno in a big pot). Cut up 2 or 3 stalks of celery and set all that aside. Don't be fussy when you cut it up, do a rough chop, it will be fine.
STEP 2-MAKING GUMBO!
Ok… gumbo is literally all about the roux. Any gumbo lover or pretentious gourmand will tell you this. It seems intimidating but only by bully foodies. It is the simplest thing in the world.
Webster Helps Defining Roux:
“a cooked mixture of flour and fat used as a thickening agent in a soup or a sauce”
That sounds intimidating too but the best part is the French derivation:
“French, from beurre roux brown butter.”
Brown butter. All you need to know is this. It is simple, simple, simple, simple and all you have to do is pay attention. Rough is equal parts vegetable oil and flour. I recommend ¾ cup of each. Dump them into a clean skillet or sauce pan. For this, I like to be fussy. My wife bought me a couple of excellent porcelain and iron pots. They rock. Here is a decent example:
Do a little research and buy one. They are great for everything. Anyway…
Dump the oil and flour into your pot or pan over a medium heat. Grab a wooden spoon (for God’s sake DO NOT tell me you don't have a wooden spoon) and start to stir in whatever pattern you want but I cannot emphasize this enough, you must stir constantly, it will bubble up a little but don't let that freak you out, keep stirring. Consider having a full glass of red wine while you make the roux. Stir and sip and stir and stir and stir and sip and stir and stir… you get it. It goes taupe, it goes off white, bone, ecru, tan, brown and then chocolate brown...and then your done. Should take 20 minutes, maybe 25 or 30 but spend the time and stir...stir...stir. It is important. It is the key to the whole thing….
This is how it starts. Get all the lumps out of the flour and then stir in nice patterns while you drink you wine...nothing happens for a while.
And when it turns chocolate brown add the onions, celery and peppers, and bay leaves and salt and pepper, and paprika, thyme and 8 cups of stock. Stir it all together and scrape that roux off the bottom when doing it and stir a few more times, reduce to simmer and then cover it let it cook for an hour.
After an hour add the chicken and the sausage and simmer for another hour. 10 minutes before you want to eat, stir in the file’ gumbo and the green onions.
Make some rice… I think white rice...Uncle Ben's or Minute Rice, no reason to be fussy.
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