Trufflepig Recipes: Gumbo

So it is Saturday night, I am cooking Gumbo, listening to Graceland and Rubber Soul on Vinyl cafe, drinking beer… and I thought of ya’ll.  Here’s a recipe to whisk you to the southlands:

“Uncle Lex’s Chicken and Sausage Gumbo”

[Serves 10-20]

Ingredients

2 cups White Flour; 2 cups Canola Oil; 2 bunch celery; 3 large sweet yellow onions; 2 green bell peppers; 2 whole chickens; 4-6 links of Andouille (or a smoky spicy sausage); Salt; Pepper; Celery Salt; Old bay

Beer or wine to be consumed by chef

Steps

1. Pour a drink.
2. Roast both chickens in order to use the meat for the gumbo and the bones for stock.  Once roasted, peel off all the meat and set the carcases in a pot filled with water over heat with any left overs of veg you have to hand, to make your stock to be used in the Gumbo.  You can use a store bought rotisserie in a bind.
3. Once stock is set put meat and stock aside.
4. Sharpen a knife and dice all the vegetables and the meat and set them aside ready for step #7.  The scale is up to you, fine dice if you are keen for veg, if not no worries, it is a drunken dish anyways.
5. Pour another drink.
6. Take the flour and oil and mix in a thick bottom pot over heat to make a roux.  This is a dedicated step, meaning once you start this you are not able to do anything else for the next 45 minutes or so.  There are cheats to this step if you would like, but it makes your gumbo week and feeble.
7. Stir, non-stop, until roux is set as a dark roux……colour of a deep chocolate, or an old penny.  See photos.
8. Once the roux is set, have all your fixings set to the side for immediate introduction: the holy trinity of celery, onion and bell pepper, diced.  Throw it in the roux and mix over heat while the veg sweats out.

Now here you can pause if need be, take it off the heat, walk away if you need to, pick it up a day later. This is the only point you can take your eye off the ball.  

8. Add the Chicken stock in with the roux and veg and let them all mingle and party for an hour or so in a simmer. Pour a drink.
9. Now is the dance party, let the stuff simmer and dance until it is a late night bourbon drunk and they are all sweating and dancing dirty, then throw in the chicken chunks and let the chicken dance for a bit, too.
10. Pour another drink.
11. Now when the party is ready to finish and all are slow dancing and simmering in a sweaty mess, send in the sausage to spice it up for a last fiesta.
12. Simmer until you want, and salt and pepper to taste.
13.  *Serve (see notes below on serving) or let cool and freeze for later date.
14. Garnish with Filé if you got it (powdered sassafras).  If not use regular old dried plantain weed (not the banana look alike, but the green thing you pick out of the garden, amazing herb that one!)

*serve= by-law-writ: needs white rice cooked with a cap full of white vinegar, potato salad of one’s liking, and french bread for sopping juice.  Pour Gumbo over rice (Now this is an art in and of itself, some folks like it soupy, some like it dry, up to you).

On the outside, Tyler is a sophisticated erudite world traveller; scratch him not that deep and he bleeds gumbo and funk music and his grammar drops a thousand miles to the south where we think his heart and stomach spiritually reside.