Phil and Sarah
Mostly we used this recipe:
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/chicken-and-sausage-gumbo-0
But I couldn’t resist throwing in a couple of items from these two as well:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/gumbo-recipe.html
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/shrimp-chicken-and-andouille-gumbo-236774
My favorite part of the whole process every week:
Photographing all the shit I’m gonna use! So pretty!
And now the part where we actually make it:
Browning the Sausage
Browning the Chicken
Making the Roux
Onions and Peppers
Look what I got again!
Phil the Food Processor!
Multiple hours later, the final preparations….
Shrimps and adding the Chicken Back in
And….
Final Product!
Looks pretty good, eh?
Phil also thought we were going to have Jumbalaya. This is particularly funny because he is the one who suggested we put Gumbo on the survey.
Phil thinks it needs more salt and that it wasn’t quite as complex or strong tasting as he anticipated. The meat flavors didn’t stick out individually like he thought they might.
Sarah agrees it could be heavier. But feels the flavors were well balanced. The problem (as always in Sarah’s opinion) is that there is no dairy in it. 🙂
Galen and Chloe
Guess who? Vegetarian gumbo! (shudder) Yes since the brisket meal (which is by name a cut of meat) the gumbo was the saddest of the no meat dilemma.
Mmm fresh tomatoes.
We started by cooking down some fresh tomatoes, because canned tomatoes are just lame.
Then we made our roux which is probably the biggest part where we went wrong. The recipe I was kinda following said to use a 1/2 cup of flour, in hind site a 1/4 cup would have been more appropriate, the gumbo got a little too thick.
The roux and the peppers.
Adding the okra, perhaps the most legit part of our meal.
More shuddering.
So above when I said the flour was our biggest problem…. I lied. These fake shrimp were our biggest problem. Truly terrible and disgusting. The texture was frightening, they were just like rubber and had a similar taste. it was disconcerting to bit into one when eating. Stay far away as you can.
All together, you can see the thickness.
The final product.
We made our own Cajun spice and also used some Worcestershire, even so the flavor seemed a little lacking from full Cajun food (I imagine it was the lack of any meat juice), so we ended up adding a lot of cayenne. And after that we added even more cayenne and then a sprinkle, a dash, and a good pour more cayenne. So by the end it had some spice, but not the right flavor. We used too much flower and the fake shrimp were simply horrendous. Definitely the worst meal we have made so far (mostly the shrimp, guuuhhh).
It would be fun to try again and make the real thing, maybe someday….
Albin and Jocie
See the thing about Gumbo is that when I added it to the list I was actually thinking of Jambalaya. I looked it up after our meal. Here is the difference:
“Think of jambalaya as a distant relative of paella. It’s got protein and vegetables (sometimes tomatoes, sometimes not), with rice and stock later simmered together or combined before serving. In contrast, gumbo — a mix of vegetables and meat or shellfish with thickened stock — is thinner and served as a soup alongside rice that’s cooked separately.”
– http://www.popsugar.com/food/What-Difference-Between-Gumbo-Jambalaya-Etouffee-14254088
So it was no wonder that I thought our Gumbo was too thin and needed more tomatoes!
Nonetheless, it was a pretty good dish. I think it tasted like it should. We made our own creole seasoning (we now have 2 spice jars full of it), and it definitely brought the heat!
We crock potted this recipe, and in the haste of cooking/prepping two meals in one night and getting to bed at a decent hour, we forgot to take pictures of the process. Here is our end product:
Mmmmm!
Man, that bowl has seen better days.
The Weekly Cook-Off 