Gumbo Cookoff Winner - Chicken and Sausage Gumbo Recipe - Food.com (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to good gumbo? ›

Great gumbo starts with roux, a flavorful thickening agent made from equal parts fat and flour. Once the roux is a deep golden color, add diced veggies and sausage to the mix. Then, incorporate beef bouillon, hot sauce, tomatoes, and seasonings to intensify the flavor.

Thou Shalt Always Use a Bowl. If you use a plate, it is not gumbo it is rice and gravy! Thou Shalt Only Use a Wooden Spoon. There is only one kind of spoon that can enter a gumbo pot and that is a wooden one.

Bring gumbo to a boil and continue boiling for 5 minutes. Then reduce heat to maintain a slow simmer uncovered for approximately 1 hour or an entire day. If gumbo gets too thick, add a little water. If it is too thin, continue to let it simmer uncovered.

Cooking the gumbo for a good three to four hours on simmer is imperative. "The long cooking time adds time for flavors to develop and ensures a burst of flavor," says Biffar. Make sure to give it time to let everything mesh together, this is not a dish to be rushed!

First mix a little of the gumbo liquid with the dry roux to make a paste, then whisk that slurry into the rest of the gumbo and bring to a simmer. There really is no place for water in gumbo. Instead, create a flavorful broth. Even common, store-bought chicken broth adds more flavor than water.

Spices and herbs like parsley, thyme, bay leaves, cayenne pepper, and filé powder all add to the rich flavor profile of the gumbo.

I - Thou Shalt Never Use Tomatoes If we've learned anything from the Disney folks, it's this. Any cooyon with half a brain knows "Making Gumbo 101" contains this golden rule -- it's roux-based and not tomato-based! Tomatoes are for things like spaghetti sauce.

Turns out, your preference for tomatoes in gumbo comes down to whether you learned your skills from a Cajun cook or a Creole cook. (Learn about the difference here.) Cajun gumbo does not include tomatoes in the base, but Creole gumbo (typically shellfish or seafood gumbo) does call for tomatoes.

For purposes of this discussion, we will limit our focus to plain old polished white rice. Even then, it comes in different sizes — short, long and medium grain. I prefer medium grain rice in a gumbo, because the grains puff up, the perfect medium for a gumbo. The thick gumbo juice sticks to the grains just right.

Gumbo is much denser than a simple soup; the broth has a thick, almost viscous consistency. And that characteristic is most commonly created by making a roux, cooking flour and oil together until they thicken and darken. Otherwise, gumbo can be thickened with file, which is just powdered dried sassafras leaves.

Do you put chicken stock or broth in gumbo? ›

For the most flavor, use stock or broth in your gumbo instead of water. Whether you use chicken or vegetable stock, homemade or boxed, the stock will give your gumbo more depth and complexity.

Yes, you could increase the quantity of roux even more to thicken the gumbo further, but the toasted flavor and fat can really start to weigh the gumbo down if you get too roux-heavy. So you still need a way to push the liquid in the gumbo to a more spoon-coating texture. Enter okra and filé powder.

There's no right or wrong to which fat you use; it just depends on what flavor you want. In a dairy-heavy sauce, like milky béchamel, butter is the common choice (and is also the more common fat in most French roux), while oil is often preferred in Creole and Cajun cooking. Butter, though, is more than just a fat.

There are three ways to thicken gumbo, but the most commonly used method is to add roux. Roux, which is made with equal parts flour and butter and slowly cooked over low heat, is added to hot gumbo stock. The starch in the flour breaks down to become gelatinous, and gives heft to the stock without altering the flavor.

Use Water Instead of Stock

For the most flavor, use stock or broth in your gumbo instead of water. Whether you use chicken or vegetable stock, homemade or boxed, the stock will give your gumbo more depth and complexity.

Filé can provide thickening when okra is not in season, in types of gumbo that use okra or a roux as a thickener for gumbo instead of filé. Sprinkled sparingly over gumbo as a seasoning and a thickening agent, filé powder adds a distinctive, earthy flavor and texture.

Turns out, your preference for tomatoes in gumbo comes down to whether you learned your skills from a Cajun cook or a Creole cook. (Learn about the difference here.) Cajun gumbo does not include tomatoes in the base, but Creole gumbo (typically shellfish or seafood gumbo) does call for tomatoes.