For all you 'wannabe' Cajun cooks here is a great dish. I got the recipe a few years ago from the people who make Tabasco sauce and my family gets on my back 2 or 3 times a year to make this. It's gooood! If you have never made a roux before, don't worry it's easy, but will tire out your arm stirring it.
Chicken and Andouille Gumbo
1/2 pound andouille or kielbasa sausage, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
• 4 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
• 1 2 1/2-to 3-pound chicken, cut into pieces
• 1 1/2 quarts water
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 cup chopped celery
• 1 cup chopped green pepper
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon TABASCO brand Pepper Sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup chopped green onions
• Cooked rice
In 3-quart saucepan, over medium-high heat, brown sausage in 2 tablespoons oil, about 7 minutes. Remove with slotted spoon and set aside. Add chicken pieces and cook until golden brown, about 10 minutes, turning occasionally. Add water, cover and cook until chicken is tender, about 30 minutes. Remove chicken, leaving liquid in pan, and when chicken is cool enough to handle, discard skin and bones and dice meat into 1/2-inch cubes.
In skillet, over medium heat, mix remaining 2 tablespoons oil and flour and cook, stirring constantly, until roux turns dark brown, about 30 minutes. Add onion, celery, green pepper, garlic and parsley and cook about 10 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Add vegetables to liquid in saucepan along with bay leaves, thyme, TABASCO® Sauce, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, 45 minutes. Add chicken and sausage and simmer another 15 minutes.
Remove pan from heat, add green onions and adjust seasoning. Let gumbo stand 10 to 15 minutes. To serve, mound about 1/3 cup rice in each soup bowl, then ladle about 1 cup gumbo around rice.
Makes 8 servings.
Good recipe. Do you not use file in your gumbo just before serving? (Or is this something you can't get in California?) I appreciate your acknowledging that other sausage can be used rather than just andouille. We made a huge shrimp/sausage gumbo the other day and actually used beer brats (forgot to buy sausage and this was all we had on hand). It was outstanding! Keep the good recipes coming.
Ellen & Loyd Guidry
Suzie2 and Ozzie2 (Brother/Sister Scottie/White Highland Terrier mix who don't know they're "D-O-G-S"-(We recently lost Suzie1 and Ozzie1 - BUMMER!!)
Grandkids every chance we get
Butte, MT
The only modifications that I make on this recipe is to adjust the heat according who is eating the results. I believe that even though I got this a few years ago, it can still be found at: http://www.tabasco.com/main.cfm -- They also always have a lot of other good Louisiana/Cajun recipes.
After looking up the reasons to use file' powder, I believe it probably is not used in this recipe because when cooking this, it cooks down quite a bit and thickens really well. File' Powder, while being a seasoning, is primarily a thickening agent.
I am still learning when it comes to Cajun cooking and couldn't answer the question right away. As always when I don't know the answer, I'll try to find out the answer.
I'm sure you found in your research that filè is actually the dried, ground leaves of the sassafras tree. For the last gumbo we made -- the one that I mentioned with shrimp and beer brats -- we used some filè that our Dad had made himself. He gathered and dried the sassafras leaves and ground them himself. Sure did make a great gumbo.
The two types of thickening used in gumbo are filè and/or okra. Mama used to take a huge pot of okra and smother it down until it was completely non-slimy. She then used the smothered okra to make a gumbo. Okra gumbo never gets filè; Filè gumbo never gets okra. Also, the filè is added to the individual serving bowls, just before eating. It is never put directly into the gumbo pot.
To me, however, when you find unsmothered okra in gumbo, it is more okra SOUP than gumbo. As was noted here by others, though, recipes differ for every family. But anyway it is cooked, gumbo is delicious and worth the trouble of putting it all together.
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