Thursday 26 January 2017

Seafood Gumbo


♬ ♪ Jambalaya, and a crawfish pie and file' gumbo
'Cause tonight I'm gonna see my ma chère amie-o
Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gay-oh
Son of a gun, we'll have big fun on the bay-o. ♫

  I may say this was my very first song I used to sing when I was 7-8 years old with my dad. Almost everyday after dinner was my special hour with dad, we would sing, dance or just listen to the music together. Ive grown up with The Beatles, Elvis, BeeGees, The carpenters ect. I learnt english from music and from dad. (I'm not from a native english speaking background) I used to ask dad, "Daddy, what is jambalaya? what is gumbo? He said "I reckon they're food by the rest of lyric but I couldn't imagine what they look like, we'll find out together." Sadly, my dad was too travel to heaven sooner before I found out. 

My lovely work college, her husband is from Louisiana briefly told me how to make gumbo and also bought me filè power. (Thank you Mary) Filè powder is a spicy herb using in this creole dish. It's very difficult to describe filè powder but it makes lots of difference with or without it,  for me I think it's "earthy" scent and taste.
I'm using kabana which is left over in the fridge and chorizo sausage because my husband loves it. For the stock I made by using chicken stock and added prawn heads and shells, onion (no peel) and celery, simmer on low heat for and hour before use.

The key ingredient is "roux" made from plain flour and vegetable oil. Roux is a thickener agent for this dish.  

Ingredients

2 cups of stock

roux 
1/2 cup of plain flour
1/2 cup of vegetable oil 

Gumbo
1 brown onion, chopped 
1 celery stalk, chopped 
1 capsicum, chopped
3 cloves of garlic chopped
1 tbs of chopped parsley
1 large tomato chopped
1 bay leave
1-2 spring onions, chopped
a hand full of okra, diced
your choice for seafood or chicken or both 400g. 
any spicy sausage such as chorizo 150g. diced

Seasoning
cayenne 1-2 tbs 
cajan seasoning 2-3 tbs 
worcestershire sauce
tabasco sauce
salt & pepper

filè powder to serve


Directions

To make roux. Pour vegetable oil in a sauce pan on low or medium heat then add flour in, keep stirring until the the color of the mixture is brown like peanut butter or caramel. Roux will burn easily after color changed so be careful with your roux, never take your eyes away from it.  
Once roux ready, add stock in and stir to combine, then add onion, celery, capsicum, tomato, garlic, spring onion, parsley, bay leave and sausage in. Simmer for 5 mins and then add okra in and let it simmer for another 5 mins.
Add seasoning, adjust to your taste, turn the heat to high, bring to the boil then stir seafood in to the sauce.

Sprinkle filè gumbo before serve
I serve my gumbo with brown rice and sprinkle filè powder in and of cause, with a glass of rosè to make this meal more interesting.
Enjoy

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