Gumbo

One of the classic dishes of the south is Gumbo. If you are ever searching for a great, hearty, authenticly southern-grown dish, this is it! It's best spicy, but can be adjusted to whatever warmth you want. Gumbo is one of the greatest additions of the deep south to American cuisine. When the first African slaves came to Louisiana, they brought their love for a thin seasoned fish stew with okra. A variant of this soup, with the same origin as gumbo, is still served in Nigeria and Ghana, consisting of fish, okra, plantains and tomatoes. After about a century, with the Spanish, French, and Natives of the region offering their contributions of food, the stew was no longer recognizable as the thin African soup and became gumbo.

The wonderful thing about this dish is that it is really a easy to alter mix of tastes and ingredients. If you don't like certain aspects of the stew, you can alter it to your tastes. But the main aspects of this dish are a good andouille sausage, shrimp, vegetables, and a well done roux. Before preparing this dish, make sure you have a good file powder, whose base is the herb sassafras. It's taken me a while to find a good andouille sausage too, but if you have a local whole foods mart, you can most likely find it there.

Gumbo

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
6 Cups Chicken Broth
3 Tbsp Butter
2 Cloves Minced Garlic
1/2 Med Onion
1 Green Pepper
1 Stalk of Celery
1 Bay Leaf
2 Tsp Thyme Parsley
14 oz. Can Whole Tomatoes
1 tsp Salt
Dash of Pepper
Cocktail or Jumbo Shrimp, cooked until pink
Crab
Andouille Sausage
Chicken
1 Tbsp Hot Sauce
1 tsp File Powder
Rice

Directions:

1. Cut up chicken into small cubes and slice andouille sausage into 1/2 inch pieces. Saute chicken and sausage in skillet with 1 Tbs. butter. Remove from heat and add shrimp and crab to skillet. Set aside.
2. Make a roux with butter and flour. Cook 10 minutes, or until roux turns brown. DO NOT BURN! It should have a nutty flavor and scent.
3. Add chicken broth. Whisk and simmer 15 minutes. Saute vegetables and spices together in 3 tablespoons of butter until tender. Add to broth mixture. Add tomatoes and simmer ½ hour. Add meats, hot sauce, file, salt & pepper. Bring to a boil, simmer 5 minutes and adjust seasoning. Serve over rice. Enjoy!