A melting pot of flavors and cultures, gumbo is the perfect cold-weather comfort. “The quintessential Creole dish, gumbo. Native American and African ingredients cooked with French technique, Spanish flare, and Caribbean heat—that is Creole cuisine, and that most emphatically, is gumbo.” - Crescent Dragonwagon, from Soup and Bread, A Country Inn Cookbook
It’s fall, and the greens are all coming back as a staple for the seasonal cook. I remember having a wonderful CSA from Cloudview farm, when I was busy working and going to herb school. Things were tight, but paying for that subscription gave us wonderful vegetables for an entire year. Being a seasonal box, sometimes greens were one of the things we got weekly, (and got tired of after a while) along with some garlic, and onions, so there was little I had to buy to make this gumbo base. Spring and Fall are great times to make this when greens are in overabundance. It is the thing I go to when I am starting to feel the gray of Winter and need some vibrant vegetable goodness in my belly. It freezes exceptionally well and can be made into a variety of dishes. I am sure if you left out the roux, you could pressure can this if you need more space in the freezer. I love that I just need to add chicken stock, meat, and serve over rice. It is still one of the dishes that sustains me in the Winter. Full of wonderful veggie goodness.
This recipe is adapted from Dairy Hollow House, Soup and Bread by Crescent Dragonwagon, first published in 1992. If you love soup or want to learn to make your own stocks, broths, and soups from scratch, (with lots of vegan options) I highly recommend this book. There are several pages noting the history related to gumbo and variations to make with the base, not listed here. You can still find it online from places like Thriftbooks for about five dollars. Worth every penny…
My changes are minimal, I took out the tomato paste and added more tomatoes. (I never seem to have tomato paste!) I use 1 single California bay Laurel leaf, instead of the 4 bay leaves. They are stronger, but I love that I have a little bit of Southern Oregon in my pot. (Yes, yes, I know, Myrtle leaf, but I am trying to make sure people know what plant I am talking about...) I also don’t add Filé powder. It wasn’t something that was readily available where I lived. Make it as hot as you like according to your taste. Andouille sausage is of course a classic for gumbo. You can also make shrimp, seafood, ham, or okra gumbos. My favorite is smoked sausage and chicken gumbo.
The base is used in a ratio of 1.5 cups base to 1 cup stock, to make gumbo. Or six cups base, to four cups stock. Adding 2 to 4 cups of meat, makes a batch of 12 to 14 cups or six large servings, especially when you serve it over rice. So, from this recipe, you should get four batches of soup, if using six cups base.
Undiluted base is excellent in many dishes. Toss with warm egg noodles for a quick dinner. Excellent as an omelet filling, or over poached eggs on toast.
This is a 4 pot, and one food processor mess of a recipe, but so worth the work. Let’s get started…
Roux
Roux…There are entire classes and connoisseurs of the art of roux making… Browning the flour to a nice Carmel brown (I never seen to get it dark enough) is what we are aiming for. Browning lessens the thickening ability but adds a beautiful depth of flavor. It can take an hour or so to get the color we want, so we will start with it first, and try to remember to stir it often. We can chop veggies in between and mix up the other parts of the gumbo while this process is going on.
I’m not going to get into types of oil, there are many opinions out there. Use what you have, buy what you can afford, and replace with better choices when you can, is usually my motto.
1 cup mild flavored, high temp oil (not olive oil) I used avocado oil today
1 cup flour
Start on medium heat, turning down as necessary, to get a nice caramel brown. Set aside to cool when done.
Greens
We are thinking of 4 to 6 lbs of greens, collards, mustard, turnip, beet, arugula, Swiss chard, kale, watercress, nettle, dandelion, chickweed, lambs quarters, the possibilities are endless…
Wash and remove the ribs of woodier greens. Place large leaves on top of each other and roll. Slice into ribbons.
Smaller greens can be rough chopped.
In a VERY large pot combine:
6 cups stock (chicken or vegetable) 2 cups tomato juice
1 tsp salt 4 bay leaves (I use 1 Myrtle leaf here)
Bring to simmer, add green on top and cover and cook on low for at least 30 minutes. Tougher greens may take longer. Stir occasionally. Everything else is going to be added into this pot to finish the gumbo base. A 12 to 20 quart pot is a nice size to accommodate this. (Keep stirring that Roux)
Vegetable sauté
Now let’s chop up the vegetables for the sauté.
2 large onions 1 bunch celery
1 red pepper diced 1 bunch green onions
In a large skillet melt:
½ cup butter
Starting with onions, cook 5 minutes, then celery another 5, then pepper, then green onions. Set aside to cool. (Stir that roux)
Seasoning Paste
Now we will work on the Seasoning Paste.
In a food processor add the following:
8 cloves garlic ¼ cup Worcestershire sauce
1 Tablespoon hot sauce 1 Tablespoon dried Basil
1 Tablespoon dried oregano 1 Tablespoon dried Thyme
1 teaspoon smoked paprika ½ to 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon allspice ¼ teaspoon cloves
6 to 8 grinds black pepper 1 bunch flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
32 oz can or jar of whole plum tomatoes drained, and juice set aside. (We will use this juice a bit later)
Whirl it all together in the food processor until garlic is finely minced mixture is of even texture.
Three core elements almost ready to marry in a large stock pot.
Now we should have 3 pans: Roux, Vegetable sauté, and Greens, and the seasoning paste in the food processor. Back to the Roux…
To the roux, add 1 ½ cups tomato juice, using juice drained from can, adding extra if needed.
Using a whisk, stir vigorously to combine. Add this paste to the greens in the pot, and again stir vigorously, to make sure there are no lumps in the base.
Add the veggie sauté, and the seasoning paste. Stir well. Cover and cook on low to blend flavors for 20 minutes.
The Gumbo Base is done! Cool in an ice bath and freeze for future use. To make a batch of gumbo for today, we need… another pot!
Frozen gumbo stock base (silicone mold’s are great!)
Chicken and Sausage Gumbo
In a 6 quart pot, brown:
2 cups sliced smoked sausage of choice (browning the sausage makes a big difference in the flavor, don’t skip this step)
Add:
6 cups gumbo base 4 cups chicken stock
2 cups shredded cooked chicken Salt to taste
Simmer for 20 minutes to combine flavors. Serve over rice. Makes 14 cups finished gumbo.