I couldn’t resist that title.
A little bit of gumbo that wasn’t too hard to make.
I have a probelm scaling back recipes to a size for two. Mainly due to my issue with math.
Wait, I dont have a learning disorder or anything, I just hate doing it in the kitchen.
I work all day with numbers and equations and such, but at home when im cooking.
Math has to sit in the living room with the dog and stay out of my way.
I can do approximations and can feel out how much I’m pouring into things but to sit and read and measure
exactly would make me cry.
So this recipe is for gumbo and it made a enough for 8 servings between me and Applehead.
No we didn’t eat 8 servings, we barely had one a peice but we have leftovers and that will be about 6 more meals
as far as I can tell.
Chicken and Sausge gumbo.
half a pound skinless boneless chicken breast tenders. cut into chunks
1/2 a link of skinless eckeridge smoked sausage. diced small
1 and 1/2 cups total of chopped celery carrot and yellow onion. your normal dice for mirepoix.
caynenne pepper
1/2 bottle of New Castle Ale
1 1/3 cup of Low sodium chicken broth.
flour, i think it was about 2/3 cup
olive oil I think about 1/2 a cup or a little more.
minced garlic
Tony Chachere Creole Seasoning.
I started with the roux.
It really is only fat and flour cooked together. And I have made many gumbos in the last year and many sauces and Olive oil is just as good if not better in alot of ways than butter as I see it. So I add my oil and let it get hot, not too hot, but noticeably warm then add the flour and start stirring and watching. The first time I made roux for gumbo I flipped out. The recipe asked to cook it until it got the color
of a Hershey bar. I was like BS! that’s burned ain’t it? But its not. Its very nutty smelling and deep and full of flavor.
But, and this is the truth, it senses fear. It will know if you are scared or if you walk away. So stay on it.
Stirring often.
After its browned nicely I add the veggies and stir to coat. I let them get nice and coated with all of the roux
and add a but of olive oil to help out. I stuck with celery instead of old standard green peppers for two reasons, one, I forgot and two Applehead doesn’t dig on the peppers that much. So I didn’t want to buy them for one dish. And the pre-cut celery and carrot stick for party trays are always cheaper than one or the other at my store. So win. Then I add the sausage. If I had andouille you bet I would use it.
But this skinless sausage volunteered and wasn’t gonna make it to Sunday morning breakfast anyway. I try to wait
until I can see softened or such of the onion but sometimes I can’t wait that long and want to get it started simmering
already. After its really looking good about 5 minutes of cooking and light stirring I add the beer and broth
and some cayenne pepper and creole seasoning. That Tony’s seasoning is my stand by when I am not looking to use all of my spices. I got a container on sale and it seems to be endless, unlike my black pepper and red pepper containers. So I use it alot. And its good stuff.
I let this come to a boil then drop to a simmer for 1 hour.
I served it over steamed white rice with a handful of chopped green onions.
I could have used more spice, or so I thought, that stuff was building on me and I was sweating like a preacher on Sunday
by the end of my bowl. It does need salt, but I rather add that at the end or eat it with crispy hushpuppies… No hushpuppies this time. Maybe in a few months I will get those crunchy nuggets again.