When I went to New Orleans last March, I was in heaven. And by that, I mean culinary heaven. It shouldn’t shock you too much to know that I could easily live on beingets and hot chocolate for the rest of my life. Any regional cuisine that revolves heavily around shellfish, vibrant spices, and carbs galore is absolutely fantastic in my book.
So when I finally got my hands on the le creuset pot I’ve been dying for (in lemongrass green, natch), the absolute first place my mind went was: gumbo. I won’t lie and say the research process was simple. I agonized over recipes for the better part of a week. I’m an incurable shellfish addict, but did I want to spend a bunch of money on shrimp and crab for a first-try gumbo that may turn out awful? I decided not, and went with andouille and chicken.
Throughout all my gumbo research, the recipes I saw kept ping-ponging back and forth between okra and file. File and okra. It’s enough to make a Californian’s head spin. The recipe that appealed to me the most actually called for neither. I didn’t trust this, so I plugged in the okra instructions from another recipe. To make matters worse, I’d read somewhere that you never, ever use both file and okra. But my coworker, a seasoned gumbo maker at the wise age of 56, insisted I use both. Well, it ended up a moot point, because by the time I tossed my broth and chicken thighs in the pot, I’d completely forgotten to add the okra.
In typical Juli form, my first instinct was: panic. Alas! I did not. I trudged onward and let that bad boy cook for two and a half hours, skimming from time to time, and when it was ready we sprinkled some file and went to town. I was a nervous wreck over my roux, and babied it incessantly. Thankfully, the milk chocolate roux I ended up turned out to work perfectly as my thickening agent.
And while I’ve had better for sure, my gumbo was DAMN good for a west coast girl’s first stab at the dish. So good in fact, that I forgot to take photos of the finished product. So here’s one in the next morning’s tupperware.
Please also note that I made bread pudding. Spongy, creamy, rich, cinnamonny, and crisp where it counts. Hot damn, that stuff was good (again, so good the Canon was utterly neglected). My date doesn’t enjoy food with alcohol in it, but I whipped up a whiskey cream sauce to drizzle on top and it was divine.
As for the recipes, you can find them both here:
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