How to Make Mardi Gras Gumbo

Jeff: Hi, I am here with the Gourmet Angel, Shelly Everett and now we are going to be cooking some Mardi gras theme food for you today. Which mean there is going to be beads and topless people all in this kitchen maybe? Shelly: Maybe. Jeff: What we are we going to have is actually some Gumbo right? Shelly: We are going to start with the root, because the most important part. It takes awhile to cook about 45 minutes and what it is two tablespoons of vegetable oil and then two tablespoons of all-purpose flour, just let it cook all right. So I am going to add bowl in two tablespoons of flour. Jeff: Okay. Shelly: This is where things get tricky because you need to start with the whisking now. And that’s about right, see it almost starts to get dark immediately it’s start thicken right? It is about two tablespoon, keep whisking because we don’t want lumpy Roux. Jeff: Are all the flavors actually going to come out of that just because of the flour and the oil? Shelly: Yes. Jeff: I’d never would guess that. Shelly: Turn the heat down really low because you don’t want it to burn. And put in two tablespoons again of the vegetable oil. Jeff: Now this is where everything is going to go. Shelly: Exactly. Jeff: This is the Gumbo pot. Shelly: And I'm going to let the oil get a little bit how just a little bit. Meanwhile you’re just to keep an eye on what’s happening over here with your Roux. Give it a twirl here and there. Jeff: And we take a cup of onions, throw that in. Shelly: Exactly, we are going to throw the cup of onions in and we are going to throw in our Bell peppers. We’re going to throw in our celery. Jeff: And how long does that need to cook? Shelly: Just until they start a little bit translucent, meanwhile we are going to check on our Roux. We give a little twirl around. Jeff: I see it’s going thicker. Shelly: Exactly and darker, this is just some white meat chicken breast. That I have already pre-prep with this little bit of salt and pepper I use kosher salt usually in my cooking. And finish with sea salt, again I am going to check in on our Roux, it is just starting to simmer little over here. This is pork, you can use chicken in doing sauces if you are not a pork eater. Because they do make it, I know how you can you go wrong with pork and how do you imagine the Gumbo without it right? Jeff: Basically anything that has pork or any kind of bacon anything at all makes it everything wonderful. Shelly: So you know that this is going to add some more flavor, so at this point really what we are doing is re-layering in the flavors. Now I have pre-prep this and I cut this diagonally, it’s up to the individual. But keep in mind you got to keep checking on that Roux, because look at what’s happening here, see how it started to brown? So at this point we want to do this because we want to make sure that it doesn’t comp up on us. You see how is that getting that beautiful color now? I’m going to go ahead and rough chop some garlic and I'm going to toss that in. It’s going to melt down and turns translucent and that is why you don’t really have to worry about dicing it. And that is just two large cloves and then you start adding your liquid. I'm going to put in 14 ounces of tomatoes, I'm going to put in 14 ounces of chicken broth. And I have fish stock, so I dump it right in, this by the way is a pound of okra. Jeff: One whole pound. Shelly: This is going to be dumped it in a 16-ounce bag. Okay well my preference would be fresh but there is none available right now because it is out of season. So if you have to use frozen just let it thaw and use it. Jeff: And now are you just keeping this low heat? Shelly: We are going to keep it on low heat and now guess what we just let it percolate for about an hour. Look at that now isn’t that nice? That’s the color we want right there. Jeff: I earned some beads, we didn’t show on the camera because we like to come back and keep watching. But it’s in 45 minutes and now the Gumbo is almost Gumbo. Shelly: Exactly. Jeff: Now we add. Shelly: Going to add. Jeff: One Bay leaf. Shelly: Dried thyme, we are going to do a half a teaspoon. Here comes the good stuff, we are going to throw a half teaspoon of cayenne pepper. Now I'm just going to throw in like one fourth of a teaspoon of my favorite cayenne seasoning and what I'm going to do is I'm going to start off with one full teaspoon of kosher salt here. Here we go, throw it in, now want to whisk a little bit. Jeff: As you add, you are just whisking? Shelly: I'm just whisking the top. Scrape the bottom of the pan baby. All right so we incorporated well, look at that it’s getting thick right away. So now I am going to put at top back on this, cook it in another 20 minutes or you can let it sit for an hour and a half if you have that. Jeff: Personal preference or time. Shelly: Personal preference or time either or. Jeff: Okay we are back we are going to add the rest of the ingredients. And you’ll notice that I have a few more beads and you have no idea what I had to for these. It’s kind of dirty. Shelly: Okay now we are going to put in our scallion, we don’t want ever want this to overcook too much. Because we always want them to have that little snap they add just little. We are going to throw in off our crawfish now, this is an entire pound going in here. These are shell, this are clean, this is cooked, this is ready. So it’s not going to take very long now. When we throw in a fresh herb like here I have a good handful of parsley that I have roughed chopped. When we throw in fresh herb, it should be really be at the end. That way we maintain the integrity of the herb, you can really taste it, you can taste the lemony that that is in the fresh parsley. If you cook it in there, you are going to lose it, it’s going to be gone. This is our Gumbo Fillet or however we choose to pronounce it, what it is, is sassafras. I'm going to put in one fourth of a teaspoon of my sassafras. Jeff: That is good, it is excellent.