[mnebergall]

For some reason, I thought okra was an essential ingredient for gumbo. I didn't see any in the picture.

[Mayhaw Man]

Chicken and Sausage Gumbo tonight. No Okra.

Fear not. Dinner on Friday night will include God's pod three ways! We're having some people over(just to give me an excuse to make something interesting for the sake of this project-anything for yogurt is my mantra ). If I can find any decent shrimp we are going to have a big batch of creole made with some of those awesome tomatoes that I showed earlier in this rediculously long project (I over do everything-always have-it's a miracle I am still alive ).

[Cynthia G]

Mayhaw Man, on Apr 7 2004, 01:34 PM, said:

BUT THIS IS NOT JUST ANY POT! This is my grandmothers pot.

I am blessed by having and using many of my paternal grandmother's kitchen things, including her boiling water bath canner and all her bread pans. (The woman never bought a loaf of bread in her 96 year life!)

I am glad to see someone as appreciative of this sort of thing as I am. My cousins wanted none of her things! (Imbeciles!)

Thanks for the tour of your town!

[Jensen]

Great blog! Maybe I will have to check out the Isleton Crawfish Festival here in California this year ...

[Mayhaw Man]

I spent the afternoon making gumbo and learning how poor my photography skills are and how when you make a mess of your cool 50 year old stove you should clean it up before you take photos. Nothing shows a mess like white porcelain and chrome.

All that aside things turned out o.k. Here is what I did:

I went to the meat market this morning and bought 3 lbs of chicken thighs. These are not Tyson's Plastic, but real chicken cut by real butchers. They are very good. I got 2 lbs of Richard's Pork Sausage and made a couple of stops to fill my vegetable needs.

I partially skinned the thighs (I like to leave a little fat, adds to the flavor when browning). They were dusted with spiced flour (2 cups of flour had a tbls. salt, tsp paprika, tbls. cayenne, tsp. black pepper). I then browned them in peanut oil. I like peanut oil as it can take a pretty good beating, adds a nice nutty taste, and you can get it very hot without burning.




Chicken thighs browning in peanut oil. These were turned once and hardly moved while they were browning.



Chicken thighs after turning at the done point. After removing from grease they were placed on paper towels, set aside and drained.



Great Sausage from Richard's-looks like cased ham! This stuff is just awesome. If you can get it I highly reccomend it. They make (imho) the best commercial pork products in the US.



Sausage Browning. I like to get it a little toasty. It adds both flavor and texture to the dish.



Light Roux. This consists of 1/3 cup AP flour and 1/3 cup peanut oil. The pan has been drained, but not scraped after the browning of the sausage and chicken. It is placed over very high heat (wide open on a normal burner) and stirred constantly. Scraping the remainder of the meat as you go. Scrape hard and get it all loose or it will all burn and you will have to start over.



Medium Roux. At this point I have been stirring about 5 minutes. It is getting very hot. WARNING-This method of making Roux was popularized during Paul Prudhomme's stay as Head Chef at Commander's Palace in New Orleans. The kitchen staff came to call this type of roux "cajun napalm". If you splash and get it on you it will stick to you and burn you badly (if you try to wipe it off while it is hot the burn will just spread) so BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL.



Dark Roux. Now we've gotten there. At this point (maybe 10 minutes in) the oil is just starting to smoke a little bit and I am ready to stop the process.



Onion, celery, bell pepper and Garlic in. This stops the browning process with the flour and the oil. Stand back as you dump-it can be a pretty lively thing. You are, after all, pouring hot water into oil.



Veg in mixed with roux/spice blends are added here. At this point I have just mixed the veg and the roux evenly. The bottom was carefully scraped, as were the sides, and I will turn the heat to medium low and slowly simmer with the top on. At this point I added some spice. 1 tbls. dried basil, 1 tbls. dried oregano, 2 tsp cayenne, 2 tsp. black fine crushed black pepper, 1 tbls salt. By adding now these spices will incorporate nicely with the veg mix and basically melt into the mix.



Veg is getting there. This has been tightly covered, stirring and scraping a couple of times, for about 15 minutes.



Veg is done. The veg has cooked down to a nice smooth consistency and all of the veg is soft and transluscent. I taste at this point and adjust spicing. (some like it hot, some not. I find that with this type of gumbo I do not prefer it so spicy. The veg, sausage, and especially the chicken all stand out on their own and don't need to be bammed to heavily with spice-but as always it is a matter of personal choice)


I then add 6-8 cups of stock, the chicken, and the sausage. In this case I used some pork stock that I had in the freezer, but normally I would use chicken or turkey (because I have more of it and it is less valuable to my larder). It is all stirred well and brought to a boil while uncovered. Once it hits a boil, let boil for 5 min or so on low boil, cut the heat back down to medium low and simmer for one and a half hours with the lid on. Skim fat occasionally if you wish. There will not be much grease if you did the first two steps right and bought quality sausage.

About ten minutes before finish of simmer time, add 1/2 cup coarsely chopped parsely and 6 or 8 chopped green onions (tops and bottoms).



This It is ready to plate. Yessir Buddy! That's the stuff I was looking for (I wouldn't have showed it if I had screwed it up). It is a very nice color, thick but not too, and has a nice spicy tang to it while not being overpowering. You can taste the veg, chicken, and sausage nicely and the three really are working together the way that they are supposed to.



Fit for Royalty. A bargain at any price.



Enjoy with a biscuit and an assertive red wine. Big Cabs work with this pretty well.

That's what I did today. The boys scarfed it up (they love the stuff) and I caught one of them while I was typing this digging chicken out of the pot. That's a compliment, but I yelled at him anyway. No use letting them think that they can eat me out of house and home.

I have to work all night tonight and well into Thursday morning (if things go bad with the nerds coming to work on our servers I will be there til noon) so I will be on board tonight late, but I hope that I will be snoozing by lunch tommorrow. Incidentally-tommorrow night is going to be BBQ'd redfish (if I can get some, has been kind of scarce unless I make it to the fish house first thing in the morning). If I can't get fish it might be Lucky Charms for the lot.

Make some of this stuff for yourself. The more you so it, the better it gets. The stuff freezes great. We usually divide it up into servings for two and reheat in a covered double boiler and it is as good, if not better, than it was when it was first brought off of the stove. Bon Appetit.

[Cynthia G]

Beautiful!.... and thanks for the lessons too!

[jayhay]

Man...I'm enjoying reading this!

[mnebergall]

Is that a canoe paddle you are using to stir the stuff?

[Mayhaw Man]

Nope-It is a flat edged wooden stirrer that is made for the purpose. I have them in several different sizes. I think that I bought most of them in a market in Tecate. They were so cheap I sort of bought a lifetime supply. I have various wooden implements in a box upstairs that have never been used (but they will be).

It is great for getting all the way into the edges of a pot, which is hugely important when you are trying to keep from burining roux.

[Shiewie]

Am starving after looking at reading this blog and I just had breakfast not long ago. Wonderful loooking gumbo - I can just about taste it from looking at those pictures.

What do you mean by a flat of strawberries?

This post has been edited by Shiewie: 07 April 2004 - 07:55 PM

[SobaAddict70]

What, no okra? heheh. No file either.

Do you prefer either, or both, in your gumbo?

Soba

[Mayhaw Man]

Shiewie, on Apr 7 2004, 09:55 PM, said:

What do you mean by a flat of strawberries?

A flat is 12 pint baskets. They sell for two bucks a pint or 12 bucks a flat currently at the place in the blog. She will also knock off a 2 bucks if you bring back 12 pint baskets. I don't think that they are worth that, but I guess that it is a way to get repeat business.

[Mayhaw Man]

SobaAddict70, on Apr 7 2004, 10:43 PM, said:

What, no okra? heheh. No file either.

Do you prefer either, or both, in your gumbo?

Soba

No okra. I use it in seafood gumbo. File as well. I also add file at the table to the one I made today. File, when used properly in my opinion, is more of a condiment than an ingredient.

I use the stuff that this guy makes all of the time. He is quite an interesting character and is at the Crescent City Farmers Market regularly.

Lionel Key-The File Man (you will need to scroll down to the third entry)

Friday is Okra Day. Did you think I would skip it?

[bloviatrix]

As I read this blog, one word keeps popping into my head.....

ROADTRIP!!!

[Pan]

That was beautiful, Brooks! Terrific step-by-step pictures and instructions.

[bleudauvergne]

Looks like we may get to see Strawberry Ice Cream coming out of this blog...

Mmmmmm

[Mayhaw Man]

Pan, on Apr 8 2004, 12:38 AM, said:

That was beautiful, Brooks! Terrific step-by-step pictures and instructions.

Thanks kind sir.

If I had paid more attention to the mess on my stove I might have come out with some more attractive photos. (first one is a twin of my unit-clocks work and it has these cool deco salt and pepper shakers built into the top that I never use but like to look at)

Damn cameras. They show everything. I need better retouch software.

[Pan]

I really wasn't paying any attention to your stove. It was only what was in the pot that was interesting to me!

[fifi]

Bravo, Brooks! My Gumbo Goddess in heaven just struck up the choir with a rockin' rendition of the Hallelulah Chorus!

And gumbo reigns for ever and ever...

The stove and the pot are perfect. Very artfully plated, too.

[Mayhaw Man]

Do you remember those placemats? They cost a ton in antique shops now but I remember everybody having them when I was growing up. My grandmother made that thing (the grandmother that couldn't boil water but could sew anything and tat with two shugs (now there is a lost art)-she made beautiful things).

[Anna N]

Thanks for sharing. I think spotless stoves only exist on FoodTV - the rest of us don't have an army of people to clean up our messes as we work!

[fifi]

I do remember those placemats. Were they called ribbon weaving? That never caught on in my family so I don't have any. We all sewed or did something. But my grandmother (Big Mama) and aunts on my dad's side were the champs. Big Mama did exquisite tatting. I have tons of crocheted doilies, a couple of quilt tops, various embroidered things. My prize is the "dollar" bedspread. That is what we called it but it has another name. Little circles of cloth were gathered into a pouf, flattened into a round about the size of a silver dollar and linked together. Each grandaughter got one on her 16th birthday. My sister has been known to wear hers as a shawl. Quilts and dollar bedspreads were made from scraps from family members' sewing. She had 9 children so there were plenty of scraps.

That kind of stuff has value beyond counting. I envy your placemats. (And stove, and pot, and gumbo. )

[Mayhaw Man]

bleudauvergne, on Apr 8 2004, 02:40 AM, said:

Looks like we may get to see Strawberry Ice Cream coming out of this blog...

Mmmmmm

Actually that is a fine idea. I can make the custard before I go to sleep and cool it.

At least one good thing will come out of this "night of the nerds". All night work is for people who don't like sleep. It is one thing to stay up late and do something fun, but this work stuff is awful. When I was much younger I did it all of the time, but I ain't young no mo..

[JPW]

Wow! Thanks for the gumbo recipe. I just ate breakfast but am now hungry again.

But, what really made me drool even more was that beautiful pot. That thing looks awesome!

[Rachel Perlow]

Brooks,

Believe me, no one noticed the splashes on the stove, not until you pointed them out. Too distracted by looking at the food & roux making. I actually went back to look at the pictures to see what you were talking about, and even then it doesn't look too bad. Just concentrate on the stuff inside the pot and we'll continue to ignore everything outside the rim.

Rachel

PS -- don't be surprised if one day some eGulleters just wind up on your front porch asking "what's for dinner?"

[bleudauvergne]

bleudauvergne, on Apr 8 2004, 08:40 AM, said:

Looks like we may get to see Strawberry Ice Cream coming out of this blog...

Mmmmmm 

Hey! Morning of the nerds, feasting on your gumbo with my morning coffee...

[slbunge]

Pan, on Apr 8 2004, 02:49 AM, said:

I really wasn't paying any attention to your stove. It was only what was in the pot that was interesting to me!

Actually, I was paying attention to the stove and it looks great. I long for the old stove we had in our last house (sold with the house). Great 50-ish year old range that had taken a few lumps. Four burners on the right with oven and broiler below. Left side was a prep area on top and pot/pan storage below. Worked great but had endearing tempramental qualities: if two burners were lit, usually the pilot wouldn't light a third; hot spots in the oven; oven temp setting from dial was not accurate; etc. Great stove, made us work for our admiration.

Another thing about your blog is the window into your town. Seems sort of unspoiled though it is close to New Orleans. I had heard from friends who live in NO that there is vast urban-to-suburban movement accross the lake. Perhaps the tract housing and Target/Walmarts are going up elsewhere. I hope so for your sake because the grocery, farm stands, and snoball shops seem ideal.

[Rhea_S]

I may have to reconsider the Easter menu this year. That chicken and sausage gumbo looks absolutely delicious. Also, your ground beef and noodles dish is very similar to a staple on my mom's dinner table in my youth. My brothers still love the stuff and it was one of the first things I learned to cook.

[Toliver]

Brooks,
That gumbo recipe and all its pictures should be bronzed! I can only hope it can get cut and lifted into an eGCI class for posterity. It is truly a thing of beauty and an art unto itself.
And that pot is wonderful! Those nice angled sides remind me of those flat bottomed woks all the stores are hawking. Everything old is new again, isn't it?

[herbacidal]

Mayhaw Man, on Apr 8 2004, 06:46 AM, said:

bleudauvergne, on Apr 8 2004, 02:40 AM, said:

Looks like we may get to see Strawberry Ice Cream coming out of this blog...

Mmmmmm 

Actually that is a fine idea. I can make the custard before I go to sleep and cool it.

At least one good thing will come out of this "night of the nerds". All night work is for people who don't like sleep. It is one thing to stay up late and do something fun, but this work stuff is awful. When I was much younger I did it all of the time, but I ain't young no mo..

Actually, I've noticed in the past few years that I have no problem staying up all night working.

But I get tired if I stay up late playing.