Let there be gumbo!
Today is a co-worker's last day, and we're having a pot luck. Everyone else was putting themselves down for chips, bean dip, pasta salad... I figured we needed something with a bit more substance. I ended up volunteering myself to make Creole gumbo, despite never having made the dish before in my life. Now, I want to be humble, but I was tempted to fib and say it didn't turn out well at all so I could keep it for myself. I had gumbo for breakfast to make sure I felt like I'd have had enough of it before it was gone. I want to marry this gumbo.
It's a pretty standard gumbo recipe, but I did make some small deviations in cooking it. I put the andouille sausage and chicken along with the water, seasonings (cayenne pepper, lemon pepper, garlic, bay leaves, old bay seasoning,chives, Worcestershire sauce, some thyme), and butter to cook in the slow cooker overnight. This worked really well as it pulverized the chicken, making sure you had thousands of tiny bits of it through the sauce. I also substituted green beans cut up very small for okra as I'm not a fan of the stuff, and I really like it for a substitution. Green peppers, onion, celery, shrimp, and clams (both shrimp and clams already cooked) added once everything was done cooking so they wouldn't be overdone by sitting in a crock pot all day. Rather than making a traditional roux, I took some of the sauce and mixed it up with the flour before adding it back. I also used the sauce as the base for the rice I added rather than plain water.
This might be honestly the best thing I've ever made. I have some plastic ice cream pint containers that I've filled up with gumbo to thaw and share with my pals Paul & Zeus over the weekend, because I think they would kill me if I didn't. This is a massive crock pot that I got from my parents one X-mas a couple years ago, and I seriously question if there will be any left after the day's done.
EDIT: I forgot two seasonings when I wrote this earlier, fixed for inclusion.
Y'know, if you were to add a little lemongrass and curry, it might have an interesting Thai flavor to it... dang it, I'm out of lemongrass, too.
, in the business of keeping the little Platypus in business