Yes, yes. I know there are some ingredients with no measurements listed below. I learned to cook from my mother, whose advice to teenager Tracy who was learning to cook was "Put it in there until it looks right". Incredibly frustrating to a novice, but sage advice to a seasoned cook. (Get it? Sage, seasoned? Hahahahaaaa ... I crack me up sometimes)
So, especially when it comes to the seasonings, put them in until they look right, or until they taste right.
Here is a most helpful website about gumbo. I heartily recommend that you read the part about making the roux. The roux is the gist of the dish. If the roux isn't good, then the rest of it will be equally as crappy.
Ingredients
3 chicken thighs, bone in, skin on
1/2 polish sausage
1/2 lb. breakfast sausage
2/3 c. canola oil
1 c. flour
onion
bell pepper
celery
1 jalapeno
stock or water
small can tomato sauce
half small can of tomato paste
frozen lima beans
okra
salt and pepper
dried chili peppers
bay leaves
Old Bay seasoning
garlic salt
hot sauce
worchestichestich ... I can't spell it and the stinking blogger thing just tells me it is misspelled but won't give me the correct spelling. ARGH. That brown liquidy sauce stuff that is in steak sauce. You know what it is.
fresh herbs: sage, garlic chives, thyme
Another note about the ingredients. I used what I had. Fresh okra from my garden (!). Frozen lima beans because I LOVE lima beans. Love, love, love. The meat selections were in the freezer. If I had of had anything else, I probably would have thrown that in too. In retrospect, the polish sausage probably isn't the best choice for a link sausage. But, that's what I had, so there you go. You use what you have in your freezer.
The Cooking
Salt and pepper the chicken thighs. Begin browning them, skin side down in the oil. Yes, all of the oil. I know it's a lot of oil, but this is what you will make the roux with. We're going to brown all of the meat and hence render some more yummy fatty loveliness out into the oil.
Brown the chicken on both sides. You don't have to cook it all the way through. We'll do that later. Remove the chicken and set aside.
Cook the breakfast sausage in the oil until done. Remove with a slotted spoon and dump in the same container as the chicken. Next brown the polish sausage. Same deal, brown it a little, then dump over with the rest of the meat.
Now you have lovely oil enriched with chicken fat and sausage fat and mmmmm ....
Sorry, got sidetracked there.
Dump the flour over in the oil. Immediately begin stirring and working out the flour lumps. Use a whisk if you want to. Now comes the boooooring part.
The beginning of my roux. You can see the meat set aside, along with the vegetables chopped and ready. Yes, that's a bottle of tequila. What of it? Yes, that's also a bottle of orange liquor. And a bottle of margarita mix. I never know when I'll need an emergency margarita.
Stir. And stir. And stir some more. When you think you have stirred enough, stir some more.
The roux needs to end up being a chocolate brownish color. White flour and oil turned to choco brown color? It takes for-freaking-ever. At least about 40 mins. When you get tired, pull up a chair and stir some more.
I used the gumbo website recommendation about stirring with a spatula. It scrapes up more surface area from the pan, and therefore keeps the roux from burning.
You may be tempted to taste the roux along the way. I don't recommend it. However, if you do, just be prepared for an oily, gritty, nasty taste. Gritty? Oily?!? I've been stirring the damned thing for ever! Honestly, I thought I had burned the roux because it tasted horrible. My end product was delicious, so I'm going to go with this as one of my new rules. Never taste the roux.
When the roux is the right color, dump in the chopped onion, bell pepper, jalapeno, celery. You don't have to use a jalapeno, but I was a little short on green peppers, so I added one. Seed and finely dice that sucker, though.
The vegetables will start to hiss like crazy, but that is ok. Stir them in and cook for 5 mins or so. It will be all muddy and icky looking, but ignore that and keep stirring.
I dumped everything in a big pot at this point.
Dump in the stock or water. I used a couple of pint jars of vegetable stock I canned last year. Why yes - I can can, can you? Sorry. Sidetracked again. I think I added some water as well. Again, make it look right. Add the tomato sauce and the tomato paste.
Now put the half cooked chicken thighs in to finish cooking. Do like I say, not like I did, which is to say go on and take off the skins at this point. I put them in skins and all, then had to fish the skin out later. Kinda gross. Let the chicken cook for 20 mins or so, or until you are pretty sure it is done. Take it out and set aside to cool. When it is cooled you will pull the meat off of the bone and add that into the pot.
Now add spices. How much? Jeez. I don't know. Again, I tasted it over and over and kept adjusting. I'd say as a place to start:
1 - 2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 T. Old Bay
several dashes of hot sauce
1 good dash of worchestichesitiitt ... you know what I mean.
4 small dried chili peppers
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. garlic chives, chopped
1 tsp. sage, chopped
2 tsp. thyme
2 bay leaves
A note about thyme. I've got some growing in my herb garden. It's a delicate little herb, tiny little leaves on a delicate stem. After watching countless episodes of Ina, I thought at first to drag my fingers backward over the stem to pluck off the itty bitty leaves. No, they stuck on as if glued. I also remember her saying that you can throw in the entire stem, leaves and all - then fish out the stem later and the leaves will have come off into the pot. You know what? Ina lies. I tried that method. The little leaves were still stuck, but on droopy stems that I had to hunt for in the finished dish. It was a pain in the arse. Next time I will just cut up the whole stem into bitty bits and call it good.
So ... where were we? Chicken cooked, and cooling. Spices in the pot. Add the sausage and polish sausage. Add frozen lima beans - a couple of handfuls. Cook that for another 20 mins or so to let the limas start to get soft. Then add the okra. Cook a little more until the okra is done. Make sure you add the chicken meat back in. Stir and taste and pat yourself on the back because you made this:
No, I didn't take a final picture of my bowl before I started chowing. I was too busy chowing. I served with cooked brown rice and a few more dashes of hot sauce.
Oh yeah, make sure you fish out the bay leaves and dried chili peppers before serving. If not, someone will get a nasty surprise.
