Gumbo

Name: Gumbo
Total time: 150 min
Yield: 6
Ingredients: ½ cup vegetable oil; ½ cup flour; 1 unit onion (diced — the trinity, part 1); 1 unit bell pepper (diced — part 2); 2 unit celery (diced — part 3); 4 clove garlic (minced); 1 lb andouille sausage (half-moons); 1 lb chicken (thighs, bite-size); 6 cup chicken stock (warm); 2 cup okra (sliced into coins); 2 unit bay leaves; 1 tsp thyme (dried); ½ tsp cayenne; 1 ½ tsp salt; 3 unit scallions (sliced); 1 ½ cup rice (steamed, for serving)

Soups & Sauces · American

16 ingredients · 150 minutes · 6 servings

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Contains gluten · only in an optional ingredient: shellfish

Restrictions

ContainsglutenIt is in an ingredient you cannot leave out.

Only if you add itshellfish (shrimp)Leave that ingredient out and the dish does not have it.

Diets

No alcohol

Worked out from the ingredient list. It knows nothing about brands, shared equipment or cross contamination, and it is not a certification — if you have an allergy, you still have to read the label.

Ingredients

Servings:

½ cup	vegetable oil
½ cup	flour
1 unit	onion (diced — the trinity, part 1)
1 unit	bell pepper (diced — part 2)
2 unit	celery (diced — part 3)
4 clove	garlic (minced)
1 lb	andouille sausage (half-moons)
1 lb	chicken (thighs, bite-size)
6 cup	chicken stock (warm)
2 cup	okra (sliced into coins)
2 unit	bay leaves
1 tsp	thyme (dried)
½ tsp	cayenne
1 ½ tsp	salt
3 unit	scallions (sliced)
1 ½ cup	rice (steamed, for serving)

Optional

Not counted above. The dish works without them.

1 tsp	filé powder (at the table, never boiled)
1 lb	shrimp (last 5 minutes — the Creole lean)

Steps

Sear8 min
medium-high, sausage then chicken, set aside
- andouille sausage
- chicken
andouille until its fat runs and edges brown, then the chicken in that fat — both out of the pot; their fond stays, and the sausage fat joins the roux oil, which is free flavor the measuring cup doesn't know about
Whisk30 min
the roux: oil + flour, medium-low, chocolate brown
- flour
stirred near-constantly through blond, peanut butter, copper, and finally milk-chocolate brown — this half hour is the gumbo: the darker the roux, the deeper the flavor and the weaker its thickening, which is the trade the dish is built on. If black specks appear or it smells acrid, throw it out and begin again; every source says so because every cook has done it
Sweat6 min
the trinity straight into the hot roux
onion + bell pepper + celery — the sizzle when the trinity hits the roux both stops the roux's cooking and announces the dish; garlic joins for the last minute
Simmer60 min
warm stock whisked in slowly, then everything back
stock in a stream against the roux (cold stock on hot roux seizes into lumps), then sausage + chicken + okra + bay + thyme + cayenne + salt at a lazy bubble, lid ajar — the okra melts its edges into the pot over the hour, finishing the thickening the dark roux started
Season3 min
skim, taste, adjust
fat skimmed off the top, salt and cayenne adjusted — gumbo is better tomorrow to a degree that four of seven sources schedule around: it is a day-ahead dish wearing a same-day recipe
Top2 min
over rice, scallions, filé at the table
- scallions
- rice
a scoop of rice in the bowl, gumbo around it, scallions over, and the filé shaken on by each eater — filé boiled in the pot turns stringy, which is why it lives on the table next to the hot sauce, where Louisiana has always kept it