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Duck and Tasso Gumbo
We had some duck meat left over from yesterday so I looked around for something to do with it and ran across this recipe. It looked fine and all but I didn’t use it. Thanks for the idea though! I went my usual route with a brown roux (made with duck fat!) and the trinity of green peppers, celery, onion, and a half a bag of frozen okra. I did have tasso in the freezer, my last, so it went in with the diced duck meat. I made a stock from the duck carcass and I could taste just a hint of the sweet orange glaze that still clung to the bits of skin that went into the stock pot. Didn’t hurt a thing. Tony Chachere’s Cajun seasoning flavored the dish. At the table I added hot sauce to mine – recommended if you are more tolerant than Mrs J!
Gumbo!
I was working on this when we decided to make a run to town yesterday, I had the gumbo simmering sans the shrimp – they are added in the last minutes before the stew is ladled into the bowls for the table. We got back and needed to eat because we were both running a little low but I hadn’t made any rice yet. We did the Reuben sammiches and saved the gumbo for the evening meal. This one has Andouille sausage, shrimp, and chicken, and is served over white rice. Add hot sauce to taste. This fellow has some great Cajun recipes, here is a very good gumbo recipe you can adapt to any sort of meat.
Mmm… spicy gumbo
A basic gumbo with tasso, chicken, pickled pork, plenty of hot sauce and creole seasonings.
Thursday Recipe Exchange: Mardi Gras!
I’m getting ready to travel again, so I’m swamped with getting everything done at work and home. But that doesn’t mean we can’t still celebrate Fat Tuesday with some New Orleans style food and drink. Bring on your party recipes. And next week let’s go vegetarian.
I wanted to do gumbo, but didn’t have time to recipe test anything this week, except a death-by-chocolate Texas Sheet Cake, and I find my own gumbo recipes lacking. Luckily when it comes to gumbo, JeffreyW runs circles around me. Here’s his take on a shrimp gumbo:
I was rummaging about in the big freezer and turned up a stick of Andouille sausage. That put me of a mind to make a pot of gumbo. I noticed that Alton Brown was touting a method of making a brown roux in the oven that seemed to be foolproof, and didn’t require one to stand over the stove stirring for a half hour and more:
Place the vegetable oil and flour into a 5 to 6-quart cast iron Dutch oven and whisk together to combine. Place on the middle shelf of the oven, uncovered, and bake for 1 1/2 hours, whisking 2 to 3 times throughout the cooking process.
Seemed to work pretty well:
This was after 90 minutes. It could have spent a little longer and been a bit more brown but I went with it as you see it. More or less following Alton’s recipe, I put it over a medium flame on the cooktop and stirred in diced celery, green peppers, and onion. The roux turned right away into thick mud but I kept stirring it until the veggies softened a bit, about ten minutes. Next was several cups (4-5?) of the stock the chicken I used was cooked in, fortified with some Creole seasoning, along with the canned tomato bits I used in lieu of fresh. I did have fresh thyme and even grow my own bay leaves now. That simmered for a half hour before I added the cooked chicken, thawed pre-cooked shrimp, and the sliced and browned Andouille sausage.
Serve over rice, and be sure to have a bottle of hot sauce on the table lest you be taunted.
Hit the comments with your own Mardi Gras recipes and I’ll see you next week! - TaMara
Cross-posted at Balloon-Juice.
Chicken Gumbo
Sorry about the light posting, we’ve had some work in the kitchen done – some new countertops along with a new sink. That didn’t take too long, and didn’t cause me any pain or suffering. Taking the old countertop to the basement and installing it in a corner down there did take some time and effort. Noticing the lighting was poor hit me when I was weak and feeling handy. Gah. Nothing for it but to replace a dozen cheap shop light fixtures with more cheap fixtures. But hey! They have electronic instant on gizmos!
Now I wait for the new single bowl sink to fit into the hole the old one came out of so Mrs J can have a nice dog wash/deskunking station. It’s near where a clothes washer was installed so the drain and water hook ups are close by and pose no particular problem for this old plumber. Now then, where was I? Ah –
Just a basic gumbo, this one with chicken, Andouille sausage, and tasso.
