I am a gumbo noob. I know barely anything about it. But how wonderful that this month's challenge was to make a pot of gumbo! Our May hostess, Denise of There’s a Newf in My Soup!, challenged The Daring Cooks to make Gumbo! She provided us with all the recipes we’d need from creole spices, homemade stock and Louisiana white rice, to Drew’s Chicken & Smoked Sausage Gumbo and Seafood Gumbo from My New Orleans: The Cookbook, by John Besh.
I took a lot of shortcuts and omitted a lot out of the recipe. Like tomatoes, file powder. I replaced smoked sausages with italian sausages (yeah not traditional). I used store bought chicken stock. Yeah and other things.
But you can't make a gumbo without a roux (a 1:1 mixture of fat and flour to thicken the gumbo) and the holy trinity: onions, celery and bell peppers. They add a lot of flavor and give it that thick, reddish brown color. One of my good friends. who makes a lot of gumbo, told me the darker the roux and ultimately the gumbo, the better it is. Looks like I've got practicing to do.
But for my first shot at gumbo, I thoroughly enjoyed the process of making it. And of course sharing and eating it with my friends. :D Let the good times roll!
I have posts waiting I just never get around to them. It's my last quarter at UCSD and I am really excited/nervous about graduating (if I do graduate that is). See you guys next time!
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