PLEASE HELP do anyone know a good gumbo recipe?

Question

as being a native from new orleans i can sadly say i dont know how to cook gumbo... i can cook red beans and rice, beignets, and other creole food but i goin off to college and need a simple and good recipe ... PLEASE HELP

Answer 1

Gumbo Recipe - Crab, Shrimp and Okra Gumbo


This recipe is from former Bellaonline Cajun editor Deborah Rosen.


This gumbo recipe uses hot red chilies; be sure to follow safe handling procedures for handling the chilies in this gumbo. A link to safe handling procedures is provided to the right of the gumbo recipe.

Crab, Shrimp and Okra Gumbo

1 pound medium (20-24 size) shrimp, uncooked
7 quarts water
5 dried hot red chilies, about 2" long each
1 lemon, cut into 1/4" slices
3 large bay leaves
1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme, crumbled
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon salt
10 live blue crabs, each about 1/2 pound in weight
4 tablespoons brown roux (see link to the right of the Gumbo recipe)
1/2 cup coarsely chopped onion
1 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 pound fresh okra, trimmed, washed and cup into 1" pieces
3/4 cup coarsely chopped green pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (ie: Tabasco)
4 cups freshly cooked long-grain white rice

To make the gumbo: shell and devein the shrimp. Rinse under cold water and set aside.

In a 10- or 12-quart sauce pot, bring the water, chilies, lemon slices, 2 bay leaves, 1 teaspoon thyme and 1 tablespoon salt to boil over high heat. Drop in the crabs and boil briskly, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Remove crabs from the gumbo stock with tongs, and set them aside to cool.

Drop the shrimp into the gumbo stock and cook, uncovered, for about 4 minutes, or until they are pink and firm to the touch. Using tongs, transfer the shrimp to a plate.

Boil the gumbo stock, uncovered, until it reduces to about 3 quarts. Strain the stock through a fine sieve or cheesecloth set over a large pot; discard the seasonings. Cover the pot to keep the gumbo stock warm until ready for use.

When the crabs are cool enough to handle, shell them. Save the morsels of yellow liver and "fat" as well as any pieces of orange roe. Leave the large claws in their shells, but crack the legs lengthwise with a clever and pick out the meat. Reserve the meat, claws and roe.

In a heavy 5- or 6-quart casserole, warm the roux over low heat, stirring constantly. Add onion and garlic and stir for about 5 minutes, or until the gumbo vegetables are soft. Add okra and green peppers and stir well.

Stirring constantly, pour in the reserved warm gumbo stock (if it has cooled, reheat it before adding) in a slow, thin stream and bring to boil over high heat. Add the red pepper, red pepper sauce, 1 bay leaf, 1/2 teaspoon thyme and 1 teaspoon salt. Stir in the crab meat and claws, reduce the heat to low and simmer, partially covered, for 1 hour.

Add the shrimp and simmer a few minutes longer; taste for seasoning. The gumbo may need more red pepper sauce or red pepper.

Ladle the gumbo into a warm tureen and serve at once, accompanied by the rice in a separate bowl. Traditionally, a cupful of rice is mounded in a heated soup plate and the gumbo is spooned around it. Give each diner a nutcracker so the claws can be cracked easily at the table.

Answer 2

Shrimp Gumbo 1 stick butter 2 heaping tablespoon shortening ½ to ¾ cups flour 1 medium onion, chopped 1 ribs celery, chopped 1 medium bell pepper, chopped 2 bags sliced okra, fried until not slimy 1 large (28oz) can whole peeled tomatoes 1-2 lbs. Peeled shrimp 1 (1.25 oz) jar Zatarain’s Gumbo File Salt and Pepper to taste Make a roux with ½ butter and ½ shortening and flour. Add onion, celery and bell pepper, saute. Fry okra well done. Put okra and a large can tomatoes in a large pot and add roux mixture. Bring to a boil, then simmer for an hour or more until cooked to pieces. Drop shrimp in and simmer for a few minutes. Do Not Boil this! Add file and seasonings.

Answer 3

Well hello neighbor! Ok..the first thing is to make a roux..a mix of oil and flour. If you don't know how to make a roux, check out Frank Davis's site on WWL-TV.com. You know who he is..LOL. But the best recipe i know of, after you make the roux, is to use shrimp stock (boiled shrimp liquid)...then add your "holy trinity"..i.e. celery, onion, bell pepper. No need to sautee as you want that mix to simmer in the shrimp stock..or you could use chicken stock. Also, add some gumbo crabs (if you can't find them the use a good canned crabmeat). Also add...thinly sliced pork sausage. When you have that cooked up good then you can add your shrimp.. adding them too early will make them tough. Now, you want to fry off some okra..slice the okra, fry off in a bit of olive oil (this removes the slime from the okra)...Add that when you add the shrimp. Oh and some good ole cayenne helps. Now if all this doesn't work for you..there is a mix in the groceries here called Ma'am and Papau (sp?) and that is the basics for a gumbo. Good luck! Oh and don't forget the bay leaf!

Answer 4

Check out www.gumbopages.com. The Creole and Cajun recipe pages will set you up.

Answer 5

I have been making this recipe for over 30 years. It was handed down to me by my grandmother, a N.O. native.

The most important thing about gumbo is the roux, and I cannot stress this strongly enough. The second most important part is a good, very big pot with a lid. I have tried copper, cast iron, aluminum and stainless steel and I stake my reputation on stainless steel - forget aluminum. The essential ingredient of file' gumbo is the file', which you can get in most stores in Louisiana.

Bear in mind there are all kinds of gumbo - with seafood, with andouille, or vegetarian. Actually, the word "gumbo" means "okra", which is a key ingredient in any good vegetarian gumbo, although it is not so good in seafood or meat gumbo (stringy). Gumbo is only as good as the ingredients you put in it, and how methodically you cook it. If you do it right you are officially a gourmet cook, because not everybody has the patience to do it. It takes me 3 hours to make my gumbo, and as I said before, I've been doing it for 30 years so am an old hand.

So, first things first, mise en place. Get your vegetables ready. Coarsely chop two big onions, six stalks of celery (with leaves), six cloves of garlic and set aside in a bowl. Open two of those big cans of whole Italian tomatoes and chop them up, saving the juice. Open one small tin of tomato paste. Juice one large lemon. Have a quart and a half of water on the side. Put on another plate three bay leaves, a bunch of fresh thyme and a quarter cup of chopped fresh parsley. 2 lbs of peeled, deveined raw shrimp, a cup of crab meat, and a dozen whole blue Gulf crabs cut in half or quartered. 1/4 tsp of cayenne powder with 1 tsp of salt and 1/2 tsp of ground white pepper on one plate and 1 tsp of file' on another.

Put your good, big pot on the stove, you put in an eighth inch of corn oil and heat this up over a hot fire until it is hot hot hot. Reduce the fire to medium, then dump in a cup of unsifted white flour and stir like mad until it looks like peanut butter. Then you throw in your onions, garlic and celery and saute them until soft. Then stir in your tomato paste until mixed, then your tomatoes with juice. Smash the tomatoes up against the side of the pot to break them up. Then add water and lemon juice, bay leaves and thyme and simmer, covered, for about 20 minutes. Bring back to a boil, then add the whole crabs. Boil for about 8 minutes, then reduce heat and add the crab meat and shrimp. Bring back to a boil for about 2 minutes then reduce heat and add parsley and cayenne powder, salt and ground white pepper. Stir in then simmer on a very low heat, lid on, for approximately 1 hour.

Your gumbo should be thick, rich and brown and a little oily looking.

Increase the heat to medium-low and stir in the file powder. This will add a little more thickness to the gumbo and give it a distinct flavor.

Serve over boiled rice immediately in flat bowls, decorated with a parsley sprig, or you can re-heat.

Note: Because this recipe contains seafood, don't leave it on the stove for too long. If you want to keep gumbo, you can transfer it into containers when it is cooled down, first to the refrigerator, then you can freeze in Tupperware dishes or other plastic containers. My family actually thinks gumbo is better re-heated from frozen! But remember don't freeze anything with seafood in it twice, i.e. don't thaw it out then freeze it again.

Answer 6

www.foodnetwork.com try Emerils link Good Luck