Eccentric Flower:200612/Gumbo Illustrated

Gumbo, Illustrated

2006-12-16 18:08:00

Yesterday I made another largish batch of gumbo, and I took a few pictures to aid in the creation of gumbo for novices.

ingredients This first image shows your hardware setup. You will need: A nice big cutting board, a knife, a bowl big enough to hold the chopped vegetables, a big heavy pot with a lid (how big? Well, how much gumbo are you making?), and if you are a novice at making roux or are making a fairly small amount of it, a very small saucepan for the roux. It's hard to make roux in a big pot.

Also shown are three small white onions, one enormously large bell pepper, and three rather puny stalks of celery. The idea is to have roughly equal amounts of each when they are chopped. (I had to go back and add another stalk of celery after I took this photo.) Also some garlic, to taste - which for me is a lot.

Not shown: equal parts of white flour and vegetable oil, a stirrer for the roux, whatever cooked or uncooked meats you'll put in the gumbo, and the liquid: water and chicken, turkey, duck, or vegetable stock.

garlic I don't mince the garlic in a press here, that's a timesaver but it makes the pieces a little too fine for me. I like a coarse mince here. The bowl contains the chopped bell pepper, celery and onions - the Holy Trinity.

The main reason you chop all the vegetables first is that you will not have time to do so once you start the roux. If your meat requires any sort of serious preparation - for example, if you have to section a raw chicken - you should also do this before starting the roux. In this case I was using an already-pulled turkey carcass with lots of loose meat, and a Hillshire Farms kielbasa that can be sliced very quickly. So I didn't bother.

calm before the storm All done with prep? Are you absolutely sure? Are you prepared to not answer the phone? Have you put on some mood music? Are the kids distracted? Have you got a lovely beverage?

The next part is not hard but you will not be able to step away from it for anywhere from fifteen minutes to a half an hour, depending on how fast you make your roux. The first time, it is best to go slow.

pre-roux The big pot has been moved over to be pressed into service later. The burner the roux pot is on is the only one we'll use though. I have gotten out my favorite tool for this - a wooden spatula, much abused, that can scrape down the sides and bottom of the pot easily. Spoons don't do as well, but plastic spatulas WILL melt. We are about to make a very hot, very dangerous substance.

The formula is equal parts flour and oil. Do not use olive oil; its smoke point is too low. Vegetable or peanut oil only. The amount to make is a matter of judgement; the more you use, the more the gumbo will have a distinctive brown-roux flavor ... but you also run the risk of having a greasy gumbo. We always skim excess grease off the gumbo anyway. This amount here is a half cup of each. That is a good starting amount if you are making a couple of quarts of gumbo, as I am here. If you are trying to make a small gumbo - good luck - you can start with as little as three tablespoons of each. Warning: The smaller the amount, the faster it cooks. Watch carefully.

Dump the flour and oil in, turn the heat to medium, and begin stirring. Your first goal is to remove all the flour lumps.

blonde This is what it looks like shortly after you have gotten the lumps out. It will coat a spoon and still be a definitely off-white color.

Do not stop stirring throughout; the flour will have a tendency to settle on the edges or bottom of the pan and will have to be scraped loose constantly. But don't stir too vigorously; you do NOT want to splash this stuff on yourself. As it heats it becomes a fair homemade approximation of napalm.

Remember, you control the heat. If it bubbles a lot around the edges, consider lowering the heat or taking the pan off the heat temporarily. If you're stirring and stirring and the color doesn't change, turn the heat up for a while.

browning Yes, this is a cold burner. I'm serious about not leaving this alone. I took it off the heat long enough to get the camera to take the photo.

After a time, depending on how fast you try to push it, your roux will make a starchy smell, a bread-dough and pudding-basin smell. This is the first point where something changes in the chemistry, don't ask me what, and the flour will undergo rapid browning and suddenly it will seem like there is no end to brown clumps to be scraped up from the pot.

In this photo you can just barely see darker specks in the roux - that's the flour hitting its trip point. Stir it all in, but do not panic; this is normal.

'curdling' Some time later you will start getting a definite fish-fry smell - the smell you get when deep-frying something breaded. NOW IS THE TIME FOR CAUTION. At this point your roux will darken VERY quickly and the line between "dark enough" and "burned" is very fine.

You may find, if you are making roux in a hurry, that it does what you see in this photo - looks and acts as if it is curdling, and suddenly you are stirring a semi-solid mass of nasty. This does not mean your roux is ruined! It DOES mean that you should take it off the heat right now. The residual heat in the pot alone will probably be enough to take it to the color you want.

Also, it will smooth back out somewhat. Keep stirring. In this part it is vital from keeping any of the napalm from standing still where it can burn, especially on the bottom of the pot.

enough! This is as brown as I personally dare get a roux. Others take it further than a hazelnut color all the way down to pecan, but I tend to chicken out around here. If you burn the roux it must be thrown out - no casual task, I might add, since it is now a genuine safety hazard.

At this point it has lost most of its thickening power (the flour has been chemically taken apart) but tastes real good - not that you should taste it! In fact, our big problem right now is how to get this to NOT cook any further from its own heat, before it burns.

The answer: Pour it CAREFULLY into the big cold pot, and add the chopped vegetables. There will be some sizzling and griping. Stir well.

mmmmbaby Your roux is now defused. Also, at this time you will notice that the pot is emitting a really fantastic smell. Let the veggies cook a little bit while you contemplate liquid.

I use half stock and half water, usually, simply for availability purposes. If you're making a big batch of gumbo, that's a lot of stock. What stock? Well, I do not recommend beef stock. I also don't recommend that you use low-sodium stock, because gumbo apparently wants a lot of salt.

Oh, yeah, seasonings. Now is the time to add them. I am minimalist; I add a palmful of salt, all the cayenne pepper I think the diners can stand, and oh, a generous sprinkling of thyme. Some like a bay leaf; I hate fishing them out.

You may find that you need to add more salt later. I almost always do. Other variations on seasoning are left to the whim of the cook.

protogumbo How much liquid? Well, how much gumbo are you making? Remember it's gonna cook down a bit, so add a little more liquid than you think you will want. Also remember - if you taste analytically at this point - that the flavors are going to concentrate, and that you haven't added any protein yet.

Here's what it looks like at this point. Now to contemplate meat. You can add raw or cooked meat (of course if you add raw meat you won't be able to taste it again for a while). I recommend a minimum of two hours cooking, so raw meat will have plenty of time to cook. I favor chicken, turkey, duck, and a nice spicy sausage such as chorizo or (should you be so lucky) andouille. Sausage should be sliced, not too thinly; whole birds should be sectioned.

Leave the bones in; the bones add tons of flavor even though you'll need to fish them out later. Skin is another matter; I've come to believe that all it contributes is grease, and I've taken to removing it beforehand (when I remember to).

If you are making a seafood gumbo: do NOT add the meat now. Don't add it more than a short while before the end of the cooking time because it cooks way too fast. Shrimp and oysters are good; the latter are literally an "add just before serving" because they cook in seconds. Fish has to be a fairly sturdy variety or the rest of the gumbo flavors just overwhelm it. But hey, experiment! Gumbo is great for using up leftover proteins.

now leave it alone You'll notice we've moved to the big pot - this gumbo had to handle most of a turkey carcass and I realized the red pot simply did not have capacity. Try not to be as dumb as I am; hot gumbo is a pain to transfer.

At this point you have done everything you can do; but it's not gumbo yet. Strive to reach this point somewhere between two and three hours - two at minimum - before your gumbo is to be served. The cooking time is needed. Really. But it's an unattended cooking; cover the pot, turn the heat to medium to medium-low, and check it now and then to give it a stir and make sure it isn't boiling very vigorously; you want an extremely gentle bubble.

Half an hour before time to serve, make some rice.

So where's the filé? Well, you can't cook it. It becomes stringy. Never let gumbo boil after adding filé powder to it. And if the gumbo is to be frozen or reheated (which is how I prefer it - like chili, it's better the second day sometimes), same problem applies.

So we add filé these days to our individual portions, sprinkling it on top of our bowls as a seasoning. It isn't traditional but it's still good.

By the by, for the next two hours your kitchen will smell fabulous. Sit down, relax, have a drink.

Reader Comments

Just for the record, the spacing looks fine to me. -- mellificent - 2006-12-16 19:02:51

Looks fine to me, too -- and the gumbo looks lovely! Thanks for doing this -- I'll be sending it to a lot of folks! -- otherwise_nyc - 2006-12-16 19:16:42

Huh. Not an okra fan? -- trinker - 2006-12-16 19:21:25

The okra conversion kit takes special instructions. I don't usually do it, not because I dislike okra, but because I can't usually find a supply of good okra, and when I do, I like to use it for other things. If I get my hands on okra this summer I'll see about writing about the care and feeding of okra. -- columbina - 2006-12-16 21:55:55

I have now fixed some of it - hours after you commented, when I got home - and it ALMOST all looks like I want it to, but there is a huge gap between the block with the first photo and the block with the second photo - like half a screen's worth. If you're not seeing it, I have no idea why not. -- columbina - 2006-12-16 22:06:21

It's the ad, I think. Since you're a paid member you don't see the ad down the side. The second photo won't begin until the bottom of the ad and it's probably the break tag. We will live with it. -- columbina - 2006-12-16 22:09:48

I'm a free user now, and I don't see a huge gap, either.

(I'm in Firefox, with 1280x800.)

-- trinker - 2006-12-16 22:22:27

Well, it's just defective for me then. But Nonelvis sees it too, so I am not the sole hallucinator. -- columbina - 2006-12-16 22:29:47

Terrific! I'm definitely going to cook this after Christmas. I'm grateful to you for all the instructions. -- unselko - 2006-12-18 02:32:09

-- lisanh - 0001-01-01 00:00:00

The gumbo entry needs to be easier to find.

But I do not complain - I will just keep the link now.

-- irishkathy52 - 2009-03-14 02:52:36