NEW ORLEANS GUMBO
This is my husbands all time favourite dish, and today is our 19th Wedding Anniversary, every mouthful of this dish bursts full of individual flavour that all explode in unison with every mouthful... This is a dish that you can cook 90% and then leave until you are ready to eat, this I do because I can then really take my time to brown off the roux adding a better depth of flavour to the gumbo.
INGREDIENTS
THE STOCK
20 raw tiger shell on prawns
knob of butter
dash of ooil
3 ltr chicken stock
THE ALL IMPORTANT ROUX
1st Stage
500g cooking chorizo sliced
4 tbsp flours
ooil
2nd Stage
2 green peppers fine chopped
3 stalks celery fine chopped
1 lrg onion fine diced
5 fresh bay leaves
small bunch of thyme leaves
8 cloves garlic fine chopped
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp Tabasco sauce
200g - 300g okra
1 tin chopped tomatoes
sea salt
fresh ground black pepper
1 lemon juiced
TO FINISH THE GUMBO
8 scallops
1 whole crab or dressed
1 lobster with claws
chopped curly parsley
This is a easy dish to make, a little preparation in advance makes all the difference and gives you a stress free calm cook. Firstly I like to prep the fish and place in a bowl ready later for the final cooking stage to serve.
First remove the roe and membrane off the scallops and discard (I cook this for my cat and dogs), then take the tail meat and claw meat from the lobster, the rest of the lobster keep back to make lobster bisque the next day. If you have a whole crab then remove the centre part and legs and pick out all the meat, no need to keep the brown from the white. Place all the fish/shellfish in the fridge ready for later, keeping the cooked lobster and crab separate from the raw fish.
THE STOCK
Next peel the prawns, putting all the heads and shells in a deep stock pan and placing the peeled prawns in the fridge with the rest of the fish, now add the butter and dash of oil to the prawn shells and gently pan fry for 10 minutes, this is going to make your glorious fish stock base, now add the 3 ltr of chicken stock and simmer, (meanwhile you can start to make the roux), after 20 minutes strain the stock through a sieve and return to the pan and leave to just tick over on a low heat.
MAKING THE ROUX
While your stock is ticking over, pan fry the sliced chorizo sausage in a non stick frying pan until sealed on each side, remove the chorizo only and leave the rendered chorizo fat in the pan, add the flour and some ooil if needed to make a medium loose paste, this is your roux, now slowly cook this on a low medium heat for 20-40 minutes until it passes a peanut butter colour and starts to darken a little more, this will add such depth of flavour.
Now add a dash of ooil to the darkened roux along with the chopped green peppers, onion, celery and garlic cook for 10 minutes and then add the bay leaves and thyme leaves and cook for a further 5 minutes then add the okra, the cayenne pepper and Tabasco, stir in well and cook for another 5 mins.
Add all of the roux mixture to the sieved stock along with the tin of tomatoes, a pinch of salt and pepper. Bring back up to a gentle simmer and add all the crab along with half the lemon juice, cook for 10 minutes or so and then taste. Now to season the gumbo to perfection, all it takes is a adjustment with the lemon juice, Tabasco and salt.
Cook your rice, quick, easy and perfect rice every time, take one cup of rice (serves 2) and two cups of water, place in a shallow saucepan, do not stir, pop on lid and bring to a simmer, time 6 minutes, do not take the lid off, take off the heat and leave for 10 minutes to finish steaming, when you do take off the lid you will have lots of steam holes which confirms you have perfectly cooked rice, fluffy and light.
Your gumbo at this stage is ready and can be finished by adding the scallops, prawns and lobster or left to tick over or cool down and then re-heated when needed, just add the prawns, scallops and lobster once up to temperature and serve with plain boiled rice, sprinkle with parsley and enjoy every lipsmacking mouthful...
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