GUMBO
Meat of your choice (usually) would be chicken & sausage, shrimp, crabmeat & oysters, I put any and all of these if I have them. Usually people don't mix the chicken and sausage with the seafood but it's still delicious.
Depending on how big of a pot you make will depend on how much ingredients to use. I have a picture posted of the size pot I cook in so my ingredients will pertain to that size pot. I use a 10qt Magnalite pot to cook my gumbos in & large cast iron skillet
Ingredients:
2 lbs. of boneless chicken breast
2 pks of smoked sausage
2 lbs of shrimp
2 lbs of mix blue crab meat
If you're doing only chicken & sausage I'd do 3 to 4 lbs of chicken.
Chopped seasoning (green onions, onions, belle peppers, parsley, garlic)
2 tbsp minced garlic
seasoning spices (Creole seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper)
2 cooking spoons of flour
approx 1/2 c of cooking oil
1 dz eggs (optional but soooo good!)
(1) kettle of hot water.
1 tsp of file
1 tsp kitchen bouquet (optional)
directions: (the way I do it)
slice up sausage
cut up chicken into small pieces (bit size if possible)
shrimp must be pealed of course
if you buy pre-chopped seasoning you going to use at the entire container.
fry sausage w/half of the container of seasoning after sausage is browned place in large bowl on side for later use
take rest of seasoning and sauté abt 5 to 10 minutes then throw in chicken and season w seasoning spices (Creole seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper). Cook chicken for approx 20 minutes. Turn off fire.
In Large pot coat bottom of pot w either canola or veg oil abt 1/4 c. should on medium high heat. After oil is heated use about (2) heaping cooking spoons of flour. Reduce heat to medium low. The consistency of the roux mixture should look like syrup of it looks pastier just add sm amounts of oil until you get to the consistency you want. Use a wisk to constitently stir roux until it gets a shade lighter then what Hersey's chocolate syrup looks like. This will probably take 30 to 45 minutes and you may have to fluctuate your heat just don't keep it any higher them medium for a long period of time. When it's starts turn dark brown if you get nervous you can begin add the other ingredients, it its not as dark as youd like it to be after the water is add you can just add "kitchen bouquet" at the end, this is a browning and thickening agent. ***A roux burns very quickly***
After roux is cooked add sausage and continue to stir mixture then add chicken, the roux mixture will begin to look pasty. Take a little bit of the water from the kettle and pour into the skillet to get the drippings and pour into the gumbo pot (never drain any grease from any meat you cook that's where all your flavor is....no said Gumbo was healthy LOL). Take entire kettle of hot water and pour into gumbo pot. Add more spice seasoning to the gumbo and stir well. The consistency should be between a stew and soup if thicker then you want you may want to heat another kettle full of water and add as you need. At this time if gravy/juice isn't as dark as you'd hoped this is where you'd add your "kitchen bouquet" abt 1 tsp until at a time until you get it to the color you want. Turn fire to medium and bring to a boil then turn down to medium/low to simmer for about 30 minutes. At this time you'll want to put some rice on to cook. If you have shrimp and crabmeat you don't have to add that until abt 10 minutes before gumbo is finished crabmeat is already cooked and shrimp cooks fast.
Eggs are optional...bring a pot of water to boil add eggs and boil for approx 15 minutes remove from heat peal and throw into gumbo. You would do this right after you add your shrimp and/r crabmeat and about 1 tsp of file'.
People think gumbo is very hard to cook but once you have the roux making down then you're good to go b/c that's the heart of a good gumbo or stew.
C'est tout!