James's New Orleans Seafood Sausage Gumbo
1 lrg Green Pepper, chopped
1 lrg Spanish Onion, chopped
3 stalk celery, sliced
2 lb Okra, 1/2" slices
1 bn Green Onions, chopped
1 lrg Tomato, chopped, peeled & seeded
1 1/2 lb Shrimp (20ct), save shells
1 pt Oysters, small, save juice
1 lb Scallops
2 x Chicken breasts, boned
1 lb Andouille or smoked sausage
1 tsp Tabasco sauce
1 tbl Worcestershire sauce
6 x Cloves garlic, minced
8 oz Butter (two sticks)
8 oz Flour (one cup)
1/2 tsp Dried Thyme leaves
1 bot Doxee's Clam Juice
2 cup Uncooked parboilled rice use Uncle Ben's converted
1/2 tsp Dried Oregano leaves
2 x Bay leaves
Salt and pepper to taste
A little MSG
4 cup Chicken stock (about)
Fry pan or deep pot, IRON
Method :
This is an authentic family recipe that my mother taught me in 1950 in New
Orleans. It makes a great dinner party main dish. Like chinese food, it is long
on chopping and assembling, but goes together and cooks rather quickly.
Shrimp - First peel shrimp, keep chilled, save shells. Put shells in small pot,
cover with water, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 15 minutes. When
water has been reduced by about half, remove from heat, cool, and strain out
shells. Reserve water.
Chicken and sausage - Chop sausage and chicken into medium bite-sized pieces,
brown in fry pan, drain, set aside.
Okra - Cut off stems and tips, slice into 1/2" pieces. Set aside.
Prepare garlic, Spanish onions, green onions, celery, set aside separately.
Roux - Melt butter in a large IRON pan or deep pot, add flour. Stir constantly
over low heat until flour is cooked, starting to lightly brown.
Care is needed here because from cooked to burned is a short but tragic step,
but you can start over. After light brown, the color is all politics, it tastes
good.
Once the roux is cooked, stir in garlic and celery. Turn up heat a bit, say
about medium, but stir constantially to prevent roux from burning. After about
1-2 minutes, dump in chopped Spanish onions and green pepper, continue stirring.
After another minute or so of cooking and stiring, dump in the okra. By this
time the roux appears to have disappeared, but is still there, clinging to the
vegetables. Continue cooking for another 2-3 minutes till the okra starts to
wilt and become shiny. (If you are using an iron fry pan, rather than a pot, you
will now be running out of space and will need to now transfer the ingredients
to a larger pot to continue.)
Stir in the chicken and sausage pieces. After another minute, mix in shrimp
water, the oyster juice, the bottle of Doxee's Clam Juice (THIS IS THE SECRET TO
THE NOLA FLAVOR!), and enough chicken stock to cover the ingredients by an inch
or so. Add bay leaves, Tabasco and Worcestershire sauces, spices, salt and
pepper. Slowly bring to a boil (over a period of five minutes or more), stirring
frequently. As soon as the mixture boils, immediately remove from heat and
cover.