Gumbo

We are going to a party tonight, and the hosts, M&N, are two of our favorite food and wine people to hang out with. Since they are so generous with us over the year, I try to share food with them that I feel is actually good enough to share.

A note about this: although I love to cook, I'm pretty wary of actually sharing food with people. I know how to cook what J and I like, but you never really know about other people and I'm pretty afraid of the bad reviews.

Anyhow, I made a double recipe of meat-sausage ragu earlier in the week to make lasagne. I made one pan for us and then two little meatloaf-sized pans, one for M&N and one for S who had helped me out with a grueling screenshot capture project earlier this month.

I had given M some gumbo some months ago and he loved it, so I set out to make another batch to give him at the party. Note: a week planned to make ragu and then lasagne, stocks and then gumbo, and braise pork ribs for tacos is TOO MUCH FOR ONE WEEK. I have never been so exhausted from cooking for five hours every night.

Anyhow. The gumbo. The stocks for this batch were crab and chicken only. We are seriously running low on shells so I used the last of the snow crab shells. We have one bag left of king crab shells (I like to use two bags) and no shrimp shells at all. For the first time, I bought actual chicken pieces (necks and backs) to make the stock whereas I normally use carcasses from roast chicken. I had always wondered why my stocks had no scum and now I know. Well, the chicken stock from this was pretty awesome.

I always cook the shrimp quickly and then sear the hell outta the duck before creating the roux. And I always use all the duck fat to make the roux instead of pouring most of it out like the base recipe I use says... this was perhaps my mistake with this recipe but I'm still deciding if it was really bad or not. To add enough flour to make the roux actually thicken, I think we added probably 1/2 cup of flour. Possibly more. Once that was brown, I added in the onions, celery, and green onion (the "holy trinity" as it were) and sauteed with gumbo file. Already, the pot was half full. Then I added the shrimp, andouille, and duck plus the broths and the pot was almost brimming.

Every night, I set the gumbo to simmer down but it was almost impossible to get it to both simmer and not stick to the bottom so it was a nightmare to cook. Two gumbos ago, I forgot about it and it stuck to the bottom and burnt. I have never lived that down, especially since I was stupid enough to share a less-than-perfect recipe with E&K. Sigh.

So Friday we got a half day at work. I came straight home and set the gumbo back on the stove on extra low heat and got up every ten minutes from the couch to stir it. It did stick to the bottom though sometimes less each ten minutes than other times. By 6pm, it was actually thick and gooey, possibly the gooiest (is that a word?) gumbo I have ever made. The taste is light this time. Normally you really need the rice to balance it, but this time, it's perfect even by itself and one bowl is definitely enough to fill you up. I'm looking forward to sharing this one.

So way too much roux ended up with a luxurious gumbo, but I had to stir it every ten minutes which is a stretch of dedication, even for me. Maybe I should take out some of the duck fat next time. Maybe.