Our Best-Ever Homemade Gumbo Will Transport You Straight To Louisiana

Delish

Our best-ever gumbo recipe features shrimp and sausage and starts off with an extremely flavorful roux (the key to the best possible gumbo).

Transcript

00:00 Hey everybody, it's Justin here

00:01 in the Delish Kitchen studios.

00:03 When I was like eight or nine years old,

00:04 I had gumbo for the first time

00:05 and it became one of those dishes

00:07 that kind of just like opens up what food can be for me.

00:10 Like the level of complexity and balance

00:13 that could live within this like brown bowl of stew

00:16 that looks so unassuming was mind blowing to me.

00:19 It's truly like one of my top 10 favorite foods

00:22 and I'm gonna make it to you today.

00:23 Let's do this.

00:24 On this cutting board,

00:25 we have the backbones of Cajun and Cretole cooking.

00:27 You may have heard of the mirepoix in French cooking,

00:30 that like classic base of ingredients like a sofrito

00:33 that is onions, carrots, and celery.

00:35 And here we still have that celery and those onions,

00:38 but we swap out the carrots for bell peppers

00:40 because you can find them locally in Louisiana

00:42 and they're really delicious.

00:43 The other thing that's really important in this gumbo

00:45 is andouille sausage.

00:47 You could probably get away with swapping it for kielbasa

00:50 if you absolutely need to,

00:51 but I think that the little bit of smoke and heat

00:53 that you get from this is pretty intrinsic to gumbo

00:55 and to a lot of Cajun and Creole food.

00:57 We also have a little bit of garlic

00:58 because what is any good savory dish without garlic?

01:01 It's truly one of my favorite vegetables.

01:02 So we're gonna dice all this up.

01:04 The onion, give a nice chop.

01:06 The celery, the bell pepper.

01:08 Mince up the garlic nice and fine.

01:10 And then you're gonna slice up the sausage

01:12 into little coins.

01:14 Now it's time to the main event.

01:15 Truly the thing that if you don't have this,

01:17 you don't have gumbo.

01:18 We're gonna be making a roux.

01:19 This isn't that light golden brown roux

01:21 that you'd see if you're making a bechamel

01:23 or some French sauce.

01:24 This is a roux that's gonna take time.

01:26 It's gonna develop color.

01:27 You gotta go slow 'cause roux can burn.

01:29 Basically just cooking flour in fat.

01:31 And if you've seen how easily baked goods can burn,

01:34 it can be even, even easier over direct heat like this.

01:36 You're gonna get a Dutch oven

01:37 or some heavy bottom pot over low heat.

01:40 Then you're gonna add your butter

01:42 and get it melted until it's nice and bubbly.

01:44 Then you're gonna slowly incorporate that flour,

01:46 sprinkling a little bit,

01:47 whisking in so we don't have any lumps.

01:49 My main tips for not burning roux is go low and slow.

01:52 Truly the lower the temp, the better.

01:54 As you get more experience, you can raise that heat up,

01:56 but low heat is totally fine.

01:58 Secondly, you wanna be adding your flour really gradually.

02:01 That's to make sure that there are no lumps

02:02 in the final product.

02:04 And third, do not leave the stove.

02:05 You should be over this pot.

02:06 It's only gonna take like 10 to 12 minutes.

02:08 It's worth the patience

02:09 and it's worth having your eyes on it,

02:11 stirring it constantly.

02:12 Once it's all incorporated,

02:13 we're gonna be standing here whisking

02:14 for about like 10 to 12 minutes.

02:16 There are multiple stages of roux color for cooking.

02:20 There can be like a red color or like a caramelly look

02:24 or like dark brick red.

02:26 For this, we're looking for the color of like dark caramel

02:28 or like almost milk chocolate.

02:30 When you develop color and the flavors of a roux like that,

02:33 you're toasting the grains.

02:35 That's not just gonna thicken your soup,

02:36 but it's gonna flavor it.

02:37 It's super rich, buttery,

02:40 and truly like you cannot make gumbo without doing this.

02:43 It is a little difficult.

02:44 You might burn it once or twice,

02:46 but what's great is butter and flour

02:47 are not the most expensive ingredients.

02:49 So you can just start again.

02:50 This is looking pretty good.

02:51 We want that deep color.

02:53 Once you reach your desired consistency and that darkness,

02:57 we're gonna go in with all of our veg.

02:59 So our onion, bell pepper, celery,

03:02 and we're gonna move that all around pretty quickly

03:04 so that we get nice, even distribution

03:06 of the roux over everything.

03:07 And at this point,

03:08 you don't have to worry as much about it burning

03:09 because now you're introducing other elements

03:12 as well as moisture that will keep the roux from burning.

03:14 It smells absolutely incredible here.

03:16 Truly, I would eat just this.

03:18 I really would, but there's more to come.

03:20 So we're gonna go in with our sausage, garlic,

03:24 and some Cajun seasoning,

03:26 as well as a big, heavy pinch of salt and pepper.

03:28 Get that nice and incorporated, toss it around.

03:30 Then we're gonna go in with some chicken stock,

03:33 some fire roasted tomatoes.

03:35 Cajun and Creole gumbo tend to differ.

03:37 Cajun is usually meat-based and does not have tomatoes.

03:39 Creole is usually seafood-based,

03:41 specifically shellfish, and in this case, shrimp,

03:43 and that usually does have tomatoes.

03:45 And we use these fire roasted tomatoes.

03:48 They just add a little bit more flavor

03:49 that like vague, like it's been over a char grill.

03:52 Don't need to use them, but I like 'em.

03:54 Then we're gonna add a cutie little bay leaf

03:55 and bring it up to a boil.

03:56 Once we're at a boil, we're gonna reduce the heat to low

03:58 and simmer for about an hour.

04:00 Really good time to let all the flavors melt

04:02 and let this gumbo develop.

04:04 This looks and smells truly incredible,

04:06 and I would wanna eat it right now.

04:08 It's nice and thick from the roux,

04:09 all the flavors have developed over the last hour,

04:12 but we're not done.

04:13 We still have to add some shrimpies.

04:15 We're gonna add these about six minutes, five minutes

04:18 before the end of the cook time.

04:19 They should literally just cook from the residual heat

04:21 of the simmering gumbo.

04:23 We want them to be pink, opaque, and not overcooked,

04:26 so do not go too far with them, all right?

04:28 We're gonna slice up some scallion

04:29 and add it just before we serve it to the pot

04:31 so we have that like nice crunch of an onion bite.

04:34 Then you're gonna serve over rice.

04:36 That's basically like mandatory with gumbo.

04:38 You want something to suck up all of that liquid.

04:41 And then you can add a little bit more

04:42 of that scallion green thinly sliced over top.

04:45 I love gumbo so much.

04:47 I'm not even kidding, it truly made me like wanna cook

04:49 and eat food for a living.

04:52 I'm gonna take a little bit of a shrimpy,

04:54 a little bit of a sausage man, some veg.

04:56 It's all working in tandem.

05:03 The roux thickened things up, got it nice and rich.

05:06 The andouille adds a touch of heat, smokiness.

05:09 The shrimp are sweet and perfectly cooked.

05:11 And all that veg is adding all of its beautiful goodness,

05:14 and I'm glad we let it cook for an hour

05:16 because you can taste every ounce of flavor in this.

05:19 This is definition stick to your ribs cooking.

05:22 So for more comfort food recipes just like this one,

05:25 stick around here on delish.com.

05:26 [upbeat music]

05:29 (upbeat music)

Category

Transcript

Recommended