Sometimes I get homesick for the Cajun flavors of my hometown, where I worked for a while in a famous Cajun restaurant. At such times, especially in the winter, I love to make this spicy seafood stew, known as gumbo.
The vegetables need to cook, to become soft enough to eat pleasurably and to allow all the flavors to mingle, but the seafood must not be overcooked. For that reason, the recipe leads up to finally adding the seafood at the very end.
In many places outside the south, it can be hard to find andouille. If necessary, another spicy sausage such as chorizo may also be a good choice. Also, if it isn’t possible to obtain actual crab meat, it would be best to leave it out, perhaps substituting some pieces of white fish such as cod instead. If using cod or other fish, it may be added raw at the same time as the shrimp, just be careful not to break it up.
Makes enough for 12-16 people, roughly 3.5 quarts.
Equipment: • large stew pot • wooden spoon or heatproof spatula • medium skillet for browning the sausage • small stock pot for making shrimp stock
Ingredients: 2 lb shrimp peeled and deveined; save shells for stock 1 lb Andouille sausage cut into thick slices 1 lb lump crabmeat optional 1⁄4 cup butter 1⁄4 cup vegetable oil 1 cup AP flour 1 ea shallot thin slices 2 cup onion chopped 1 cup bell pepper chopped; optionally part or all poblano 1 cup celery chopped 1-2 cup okra thick slices 2-3 cloves garlic minced 28 oz tomatoes canned 2 qt shrimp stock 1 Tbsp Cajun seasoning 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce 1-2 leaves bay 1 tsp thyme 5-6 sprigs if fresh 1 Tbsp Gumbo filé 1 bunch scallions thin slices for garnish 6-8 sprigs parsley cooked rice Roughly 1/4 cup per serving
Procedure: 1. Peel and devein the shrimp, reserving the shells for stock. 2. Start the stock if it’s not already made, according to the recipe for shrimp stock. 3. Melt the butter in the stew pot, and add the oil and flour once it’s melted, to make dark roux, according to the recipe for dark roux. 4. Once the roux is dark enough, add the shallot, onion, bell pepper, celery and garlic to the roux along with a small amount of salt and stir together, allowing the vegetables to sweat. 5. Meanwhile, slice the sausage and the okra. 6. Once the vegetables have sweated sufficiently, add the okra and stir together well. 7. In a skillet, brown the sausage over medium-high heat. 8. Once the okra has sweated a bit, add the tomatoes and the stock, along with the seasonings: Cajun, Worcestershire sauce, bay leaf, thyme. 9. Brown the sausage and add it to the soup, deglazing the pan with some of the broth and adding it back into the pot. 10. Allow the gumbo to simmer for a bit, 45-90 minutes, so the flavors can mingle and the sausage cook completely. 11. At the end, add the shrimp, the gumbo filé, and the garnish (parsley and green onions) and stir everything together. 12. Give the shrimp 3-5 minutes to cook. 13. Turn off the heat and add the crab meat, stirring it through thoroughly. 14. Serve over rice in wide bowls. 15. Leftover gumbo is also excellent but take care in reheating it to avoid breaking up the crab meat too much.
