Bob's New Orleans Green Gumbo Beaucoup

⁽¹⁾

This is an authentic family recipe that my mother taught me in 1950 in New Orleans. It makes a great dinner party main dish. Like chinese food, it is long on chopping and assembling, but goes together and cooks rather quickly.

2 hours Prep: 1 hours Cook: 30 minutes

1203 calories per serving view nutrition facts

6 servings suggest servings

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Ingredients

1	large	green bell pepper	chopped
1	large	spanish onion	chopped
3	stalks	celery	sliced
2	pounds	okra	cut in 1/2 inch slices
1	bunch	scallions, spring or green onions	chopped
1	large	tomato	peeled, seeded, chopped
1 1/2	pounds	shrimp	save shells
1	pint	oysters	small, save juice
1	pound	scallops
2	each	chicken breasts	boned
1	pound	sausage	andouille, or smoked
1	teaspoon	red hot pepper sauce (eg. Tabasco)
1	tablespoon	worcestershire sauce
6	cloves	garlic	minced
8	ounces	butter
1	cup	flour, all-purpose
1/2	teaspoon	thyme leaves	dried
1	bottle	clam juice
2	cups	rice	uncooked, parboiled
1/2	teaspoon	oregano leaves	dried
2	each	bay leaves
1	x	salt and black pepper	to taste
4	cups	chicken broth

Directions

Shrimp - First peel shrimp, keep chilled, save shells.

Put shells in small pot, cover with water, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 15 minutes.

When water has been reduced by about half, remove from heat, cool, and strain out shells.

Reserve water.

Chicken and sausage - Chop sausage and chicken into medium bite-sized pieces, brown in fry pan, drain, set aside.

Okra - Cut off stems and tips, slice into 1/2 inch pieces.

Set aside.

Prepare garlic, Spanish onions, green onions, celery, set aside separately.

Roux - Melt butter in a large IRON pan or deep pot, add flour.

Stir constantly over low heat until flour is cooked, starting to lightly brown.

Care is needed here because from cooked to burned is a short but tragic step, but you can start over.

After light brown, the color is all politics, it tastes good.

Once the roux is cooked, stir in garlic and celery.

Turn up heat a bit, say about medium, but stir constantially to prevent roux from burning.

After about 1-2 minutes, dump in chopped Spanish onions and green pepper, continue stirring.

After another minute or so of cooking and stiring, dump in the okra.

By this time the roux appears to have disappeared, but is still there, clinging to the vegetables.

Continue cooking for another 2-3 minutes till the okra starts to wilt and become shiny.

(If you are using an iron fry pan, rather than a pot, you will now be running out of space and will need to now transfer the ingredients to a larger pot to continue.) Stir in the chicken and sausage pieces.

After another minute, mix in shrimp water, the oyster juice, the bottle of clam juice, and enough chicken stock to cover the ingredients by an inch or so.

Add bay leaves, Tabasco and Worcestershire sauces, spices, salt and pepper.

Slowly bring to a boil (over a period of five minutes or more),

stirring frequently.

As soon as the mixture boils, immediately remove from heat and cover.

After five minutes, remove cover, add tomato, oysters, scallops and shrimp.

Give a few more stirs, re-cover, and wait for 20 minutes.

The declining heat from the mixture will cook, but not overcook, the seafood.

From this point, this mixture should never be brought to the boil again.

Now is a good time to make the rice.

Check for thickness.

If too thick, thin out with additional chicken stock.

If too thin, add file' in a separate serving bowl before adding to rice.

Once file' is added to gumbo, do not re-heat, as this will cause stringiness.

Just before serving, mix in the chopped green onions.

They should be only slightly cooked, a little wilted but also a little crunchy.

Serve in soup platter, with an island of white rice surrounded by a green moat of gumbo, meat and seafood.

Serve with split buttered and broiled French bread, and white wine or beer.

This is an expensive dish to fix, and there should be no left-overs.

If there are, then use up promptly, because of the seafood content.

Reviews

IT'S THE BEST GUMBO THAT I HAVE MADE.MY BROTHER-IN-LAW ASK ME TO MAKE THIS ALL THE TIME.
3 months ago by jpcc50

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Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 850g

Amount per Serving

Calories 1203 43% of calories from fat

	% Daily Value*
Total Fat 58.0g	89%
Saturated Fat 28.0g	138%
Trans Fat 0.0g
Cholesterol 434mg	145%
Sodium 1536mg	64%
Total Carbohydrate 88.0g	29%
Dietary Fiber 7.0g	27%
Sugars 11.0g
Protein 80.0g	160%