Bushs Louisiana Chicken Gumbo Recipes

AUTHENTIC NEW ORLEANS STYLE GUMBO

Steps:

• Make the Roux*: In a large, heavy bottom stock pot combine flour and oil. Cook on medium-low heat, stirring constantly for 30-45 minutes. This part takes patience--when it's finished it should be as dark as chocolate and have a soft, "cookie dough" like consistency. Be careful not to let it burn! Feel free to add a little more flour or oil as needed to reach this consistency.
• Brown the sausage. In a separate skillet on medium-high heat place the sausage slices in one layer in the pan. Brown them well on one side (2-3 minutes) and then use a fork to flip each over onto the other side to brown. Remove to a plate.
• Cook the vegetables in broth. Add 1/2 cup of the chicken broth to the hot skillet that had the sausage to deglaze the pan. Pour the broth and drippings into your large soup pot.
• Add remaining 5 1/2 cups of chicken broth. Add veggies, parsley, and roux to the pot and stir well.
• Bring to a boil over medium heat and boil for 5-7 minutes, or until the vegetables are slightly tender. (Skim off any foam that may rise to the top of the pot.) Stir in cajun seasoning, to taste.
• Add meat. Add chicken, sausage, and shrimp.
• Taste and serve. At this point taste it and add more seasonings to your liking--salt, pepper, chicken bullion paste, garlic, more Joe's stuff or more chicken broth--until you reach the perfect flavor. Serve warm over rice. (Tastes even better the next day!)

LOUISIANA CHICKEN AND SAUSAGE GUMBO(THE REAL STUFF)

Steps:

• Melt some butter in your heavy bottomed pot.
• Sprinkle your chicken with a lil bit of flour.
• Brown in the butter (about 5 minutes?) Remove.
• In the same pot, using equal parts butter and flour, make your roux.
• (see my recipe list, if you don't know how to do this, it is posted under gumbo base, aka roux) Once the roux has reached the dark chocolate stage, add the onion, bell pepper and celery.
• In Louisiana, this is known as the Holy Trinity, almost every cajun/creole dish begins with this.
• Add some salt, some pepper and a lot of garlic and saute all the veggies for a little while.
• It doesn't matter how long of a little while as long as you don't let it burn.
• Add chicken back into the pot.
• Start adding your water or broth slowly, stirring the whole time.
• You will know when you have enough by how thick or thin your gravy is.
• If you want thinner gravy, more stock, if you want thicker gravy, less stock.
• Season with more salt, more pepper and the cajun seasoning blend.
• Bring just to a boil and lower heat to a simmer.
• Add sausage.
• Allow to cook long enough for the chicken to began to fall of off the bones or until people are hovering over you trying to snitch spoonfuls of it behind your back.
• (about an hour and a half?) Serve over rice.

LOUISIANA CHICKEN FILE GUMBO

Steps:

• Season chicken with salt, thyme, pepper, and cayenne.
• In an iron soup pot, heat oil over medium high heat until hot, then fry chicken until golden brown.
• Pour excess oil out of pot, and reserve for roux.
• Add onions, celery, and garlic to the pot with the chicken, and cook, uncovered, over low heat until onions are wilted.
• Season flour with Creole seasoning.
• In a heavy iron pot, heat the reserved oil over medium heat to make roux.
• When oil is hot, stir flour in gradually.
• Lower heat to very low, and cook to desired darkness - golden brown to chocolate brown, stirring constantly (It is VERY important that you continue stirring constantly).
• Pour excess oil off the top to prevent the gumbo from being too rich.
• Slowly stir in water, dissolving roux.
• Add the water to the chicken mixture.
• Allow to boil over medium low heat until meat is tender.
• Serve in soup bowls with rice.
• Just before serving sprinkle parsley and a dash of file on each serving.