Shrimp Gumbo

I was watching Good Eats over the weekend and the theme of the show was gumbo. The recipe looked good, so I decided to give it a try. I made some modifications based on what was on hand, and overall it came out pretty good. The original recipe can be found here.



Ingredients:

• 15 raw, shell on shrimp, de-veined (I used 31-50 count)
• 2 andouille sausage links
• 1 onion, diced
• 1/4 cup of bell peppers, diced
• 1 rib of celery
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1/2-1 cup of zucchini, diced
• 1/4 cup tomato, diced
• 1 teaspoon of garlic, diced
• 4 ounces of flour
• 4 ounces of vegetable oil
• salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, thyme, bay leaf

The first step is to make the shrimp stock. I placed all the shells in about 3 cups of water, and began heating. To this I added about 1/8 a cup of diced onion, half a rib of celery, diced carrot, a few black pepper cloves, and 1 bay leaf. I let this simmer for about half an hour.

While this was simmering, I chopped up all of the veggies into 1/3 inch pieces. Once the stock was done, I strained out the shells and vegetables and set the liquid aside. I made a simple roux in the pot over medium-low heat (I didn't make it in the oven like in the recipe because I was lazy); I added the oil and flour to the pot, making sure to keep it moving (I used a wisk). Once the roux was almost at a brick red color, I added all the diced vegetables (minus the tomatoes), again, keeping the whole mixture moving to avoid having the roux burn. I cooked until the onions were translucent.

I then added the tomatoes, a little cayenne pepper, black pepper, salt, thyme and a bay leaf, and stirred to combine. I next wisked in the shrimp stock, and let the mixture simmer for about 30 minutes.

I browned the sausage (cut into 1/4 inch thick slices) in the pan before adding them to the soup. This cooked out a lot of oil. I turned off the heat and added the sausage and raw shrimp, and let the gumbo sit for about 5-10 minutes (which should be enough to cook the shrimp). Last I adjusted the level of salt and gave a few more grinds of black pepper.

I cooked up some rice and mixed it directly into the gumbo, rather than just serving gumbo on top of rice...this was easier for leftovers. It came out a little soupier than on the show, mostly because I left out (i.e. didn't have) file powder which is a thickener, but still it had a great flavor.