Gumbo

One thing I remember from one of my most dominant inspirations into learning how to cook is gumbo. My Grandmother, Ida Thomas from Houston (affectionately known as "Nina"), was the best cook EVER. And she could make a mean gumbo. That woman could cook, bake, eat, feed, and could do it all with such precision, taste, and most of all...love. Yes, the one ingredient that you need to make good food is love. Love for the people you are cooking for and love for the food you are preparing. You have to believe in what you are creating. I always say that cooking is the one way I show love. One way, but a big way. I am not an overly affectionate person. I get a little claustrophobic, so I seem to channel that affection through feeding others' bellies. When I see them content, happy, engaged and satisfied...that is my round-a-bout way of giving them my affection. Kind of codependent, eh? "I give you this, but I get so much more out of your contentment from it."

With that said, this dish is a little more on the intermediate level. Let's just say it's made with more love and affection that most of my dishes, because it takes awhile. On a Sunday, if you love to get in the kitchen and open a bottle of wine and have the smells wafting through your happy home on all kinds of levels, do this. This makes a large batch, but with so much LOVE placed in this puppy, I share! This freezes extremely well, too, so since you are already going to be in there, make the large batch. Share, freeze, have a football party!?

I am going to start with the recipe card this time. Usually I always put them at the end of the recipe so you can always know exactly where they are, but I want you to read it first before we go into instructions. Mmmmkay?

Recipe Card:

8 bone-in chicken thighs, with skin (Use what chicken you prefer. Buy a Rotisserie Chicken for a time-saver)
1 lb. smoked sausage
2 lbs. raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
16 oz. picked crab meat of your liking (I used half backfin and half lump). You need to pick through it and remove any leftover shells

Holy Trinity:
[1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
1 large yellow onion
3-4 stalks of celery, with leafy tops]
5 cloves of garlic, finely diced

3 TBSP. butter
8 oz. tomato paste
3.5 TBSP. Old Bay seasoning
3 tsp. dried oregano
2 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. onion powder
1 TBSP. smoked paprika
2 large bay leaves
dashes of Texas Pete hot sauce to your liking (I used about 12-15 dashes)
1.5 boxes of chicken stock
Bag of frozen sliced okra
salt and pepper

Roux:
6 TBSP. butter
8 TBSP. flour
dash salt and pepper

White Rice
Diced scallions for garnish

Ok, got all that??? Here we go...get all your ingredients out and ready to go.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Salt and pepper your chicken thighs, drizzle with olive oil and roast in a 400 degree oven for 40 minutes. Make sure the juice runs clear when you puncture them, near the thickest part of the thigh. Put aside and let cool. (You may want to do this a little earlier as it does take chicken a little while to cool down). While the chicken is in the oven, dice those veggies. On a separate board, slice your sausage into coins and set aside.  When chicken is cool enough to touch, pick it. Remove the skins and pick all of the good meat off the bone and make sure it is free of fat and the icky stuff.

Heat a dutch oven pot over medium heat. Add 3 TBSP. butter and add your bell peppers, celery and onion.  Salt and pepper generously and stir. Saute until slightly tender and add your garlic. Continue to saute until all is fragrant and translucent.

Make a well in the middle of your pot and add your tomato paste. Let that heat up a tad as you stir and it becomes aromatic. Add your Old Bay, oregano, garlic & onion powders, paprika, and bay leaves. Stir well and add your sausage discs to the pot. Let them warm up a tad and release some of their fat. When everything is nice and incorporated, add your box and a half of chicken stock. Then, add your picked chicken to the pot and let it simmer, covered,  for a bit while you make your roux.

In a separate pan (I just used a heavy bottom pot here), heat 6 TBSP. of butter until melted over medium heat. Whisk in 8 TBSP. of flour and let this mixture cook. This is going to take awhile and you have to watch it or it can burn, especially once it starts to get golden. You will see a ton of changes over this process. It is going to start out really thick, pasty and light yellow. Eventually, it is going to thin out and get copper colored. You will notice changes in smell, too. It will become nutty-smelling. This can take anywhere from 30-40 minutes here. Keep stirring, especially when it starts to thin and change color. Roux can burn like that! Go ahead and peel and devein your shrimp while you are watching this process closely.

When the roux is this color, you can remove it from the heat and add it to your large pot of veg, chicken & sausage. This is going to make the mixture thicken up...that's what you want here.  Add salt and pepper to taste and your hot sauce. Let come up to a hot temp and taste. Add more salt and pepper as needed. Taste your sausage and make sure it has become nice and tender.

About 30 minutes before serving bring your stove up to medium low-medium and add your frozen okra and let it come back up to temp (the frozen okra will lower the temp a bit). Once it is nice and warm again, add your shrimp and stir and cover. Let go for about 20 minutes or until the shrimp is pink and opaque. Do not overcook your shrimp! Rubbery shrimp is NOT good in gumbo!

Remove from heat and add your picked through crab meat (crab will easily disintegrate if cooked too long). I topped mine with crab meat here instead of adding it to the pot because I was giving several servings away and someone didn't want crab meat in theirs.

Serve over white rice and garnish with green onion.

Ca c'est bon!