* #recipe thread * Seafood Gumbo
1/ The expression "Put your foot in" means you cooked something exquisite. Seafood gumbo takes a lot of time and prep to do right. This is a pricey one, but if you ever decide to make it, folks will say you put your foot in.
1/ The expression "Put your foot in" means you cooked something exquisite. Seafood gumbo takes a lot of time and prep to do right. This is a pricey one, but if you ever decide to make it, folks will say you put your foot in.
2/ This is a big gumbo so I cleaned 5 lbs of Shrimp, saving the heads(You need them) and I peeled a few pounds of crawfish, saving the heads(You need them) Most don't live where Crawfish is available, Go to Wal-Mart and get a bag of Louisiana crawfish(Follow directions)
3/Make a stock first, so cut up...5 cloves of garlic, two lemons in halves, a couple stalks of celery, and a quarter to a half of onion. In a pot, put 9 cups of water, the heads of the shrimp and crawfish, the vegetables and lemon. A little creole seasoning, 3 bay leaves.. Boil.
4/ Once that stock gets to a boil. Turn it down to simmer and go prep the vegetables for the gumbo. 1 lg yellow onion, 1 lg. Bell pepper, 5 cloves of garlic, 3 stalks of celery.
5/ Now start your roux. 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of vegetable oil. Fire on medium. Keep stirring and don't stop. This will take 45 minutes. You are going for a chocolate color. The key is NEVER stop moving it.
6/ Once it is a chocolate color, add the vegetables you prepped and stir for another 10 minutes. It will get almost black. This is not burnt. You never want to scorch it. Keep it moving. Next you will strain your stock and add it.
7/ Get this to a boil, once boiling turn down and let it simmer for one hour. We are going to move on to more prep.
8/ Now we are going to cut up 1 lb of smoked sausage. And one cup or more of okra. We want to then brown the sausage and set it to the side. We want to boil the okra for 10 minutes (This gets rid of the slime okra makes)
9/ After 1 hr, take that lid off and add the smoked sausage. Let that cook for 10 minutes. Then add the shrimp and the okra let that cook for 10 minutes.
10/ Now I will add 1 lb of raw oysters, and some blue crab. You may have to hit up a seafood market for the crabs, if you can't find blue crab, get another, it will be okay. If the crawfish had some nice pinchers make sure you add them too.
11/ last...Add the crawfish, get the pot back to boil, turn it off, put the lid on and cook some rice. You are done. Not many seasonings. Let the vegetables do their job, you will get salt from the seafood. Add a little Cayenne if you want, but taste it first. You are done!
