Chicken & Sausage Gumbo

A day or so previous to the above, I mentioned to my sister I was going to make a Gumbo. She said she'd always wanted to, but it was a bit involved and hadn't had the time or wherewithall to deal with it. I looked at the recipe I had in front of me from Chuck Taggart's Gumbo Pages and said to myself, "dang, this isn't tough". Then I looked at the intro to the recipe and it stated this was a SIMPLE Gumbo. Hmmm, okay, so what was a standard gumbo about, exactly?

Making my way over to the main page with all the Gumbos and Soups listed, it was clear the other Gumbos were our of my reach, for the moment. Eeeek, I still had to learn to make a decent roux! One step at a time pal, baby steps.

Since I didn't need okra or seafood, gathering the ingredients was quite easy and fast.

Here's a quick idea:

# 1 cup oil
# 1 cup flour
# 2 large onions, chopped
# 2 bell peppers, chopped
# 4 ribs celery, chopped
# 4 - 6 cloves garlic, minced
# 4 quarts chicken stock
# 2 bay leaves
# 2 teaspoons Creole seasoning, or to taste
# 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
# Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
# 1 large chicken (young hen preferred), cut into pieces
# 2 pounds andouille or smoked sausage, cut into 1/2" pieces
# 1 bunch scallions (green onions), tops only, chopped
# 2/3 cup fresh chopped parsley
# Filé powder to taste

Brown they meats!

Rub your creole seasoning into the chicken and brown in oil.

Here is Chuck Taggart's Creole seasoning:

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2 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons dried oregano leaves
2 tablespoons dried sweet basil
1 tablespoon dried thyme leaves
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon white pepper
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon celery seed
5 tablespoons sweet paprika

Combine in food processor and pulse until well-blended, or mix thoroughly in a large bowl. The recipe doubles or triples well. Give lots of it away as gifts to your family and friends.

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Isn't that a bitchen blend of spices and herbs? Chuck is quite a thoughtful guy.

Here we see most of the ingredients that go into the Chicken & Sausage Gumbo. So far this has been a free and breezy situation.

Next came the roux. We've all heard the about the fights that break out about making roux. "Sheet Fire, you spear fondling trailer trash !!! Yo mama can't make no ROUX !!!" And the fight ensues.

This is where I slowed down a bit and took care. I grabbed my enamel covered cast iron dutch oven and put in my cup of oil. I heated it nicely until I could see the oil move due to the heat. Then I wisked in the flour semi-slowly.
Here's the deceiving part, initially you get lulled into thinking this ain't tough. The flour and oil aren't quite all THAT hot and not thick at all. Heck, I could even stop for a moment and just look at it, stare at it and see what it was up to. Then wisk it again.
But soon you could see it start to turn and thicken, keep wisking pal.
It gets hotter (I had it on medium high, just like Chuck wants it) and a tad browner.
The smell of roasty toasty starts to waft. One will notice it start to thicken and if you don't continue to wisk or stir, it will congeal and burn.
Keep wisking pal. Oh the wonderful smells !!!!
Once you think the color is getting close, start thinking about how the hell you're going to get all your onions, peppers and stuff into the roux before it turns black and glues itself to your favorite pan. Putting the cool vegies in will stop the roux from browning any further, this is a good thing.

A dough scraper helped me get the stuff into the roux in short order.
Man, if you thought it smelled good before ??? When you cook the vegies for about 4 minutes in the roux, you'll know what love is. Cause baby, that's it right there.

Add thine excellent chicken broff, about 4 quarts (that's 1 gallon for you math freaks). Add the herbies and more creole seasoning, maybe 2 teaspoons. DON'T FORGET TO ADD THE MEAT. Simmer that oscar for about an hour or so. Fat will rise to the top over time, get rid of it.

Once that is all taken care of add the chopped scallions and parsley, fresh flat leaf Italian parsley, puleeeease (done to the tune of Michael Chiparello). Simmer for a nother few minutes.

Serve this over rice. Chuck suggested crusty french bread as well, but rice & bread was a bit much for me.
Oh and in Chuck's recipe he said add the File powder to taste, my wife and I really liked the File powder so we added a lot.
One last suggestion might be to ask people to dinner that night or have a few people in mind to hand it out to. We gave away a quart and we're still eating it 4 days later ...

p.s. Here is the original recipe: Chicken &
Sausage Gumbo