Seafood Paella (or Paella Valenciana), on the Grill!

Disclaimer:  I make no claims about how "authentic" this recipe is.  I try to write recipes that are true to the time-honored and time-consuming cooking techniques of the originators, while keeping in mind that most folks don't have pimento wood laying around for a true Jamaican jerk experience, for example.

After months of research, I've learned that paella-making varies with each cook, so there isn't any one "authentic" paella recipe. But you can't go wrong with seafood, garlic, and a grill-so use this recipe as a backbone for your own paella-making approach and have some fun.

Traditional paella is made over an open flame in a large, handled paella pan.  A lot of recipes call for cooking the paella over two burners on your stove, or sauteing then baking the dish.  My recipe is even easier, and there are a lot of benefits to cooking the paella on the grill.  One, your kitchen doesn't heat up, so it's great for summer. Also, people are impressed when you can cook more than brats and burgers over an open flame.  (Why? I have no idea, but try it and you'll see what I mean.) Finally, grilling the chicken and chorizo while you make your sofrito saves some time and adds the perfect smokiness to the dish that you don't get from sauteing them on your stove.

 This recipe can feed approximately 8 people, so plan on leftovers or call some friends.  Paella is even better the next day, so you can legitimately have guests over for "leftovers" with this recipe, and they will love you for it.

And I've said it before, but if you cook at home, there's no reason why you can't take the chicken carcass and the shrimp shells and make your own stock.  It's easy, healthy, and will save you loads of money. I can't tell you how many times I've been able to make last minute meals making soups or risottos with whatever is in my fridge/pantry and some homemade stock from the freezer. Think about it.


Paella Valenciana with Shrimp, Squid, Chorizo, Chicken, and Clams Recipe

1 whole chicken, skinned and cut into thighs, drumsticks, and breast pieces and seasoned w/saltpepper
8 cloves garlic, minced
3 ripe tomatoes, chopped (some say to "grate the tomatoes." That thought grosses me out)
1 medium onion, chopped
3 Tbs. olive oil
4 cups shrimp stock, fish stock, or clam juice
Large pinch saffron
2 cups arborio or another short-grained rice (important-the rice has to absorb the broth. Short grained rices do this well)
1 lb. uncooked shrimp, peeled but with tails intact
1/2 lb. chorizo sausage, pierced with a knife in several places
3-4 whole uncooked squid, with the bodies cut into rings
12-15 uncooked clams, scubbed
1 cup peas (can use frozen + thawed)
1 yellow and 1 red bell pepper, cut into strips
2 tsp. salt,  more to taste
2 tsp. smoked paprika
3 Thyme sprigs
3 lemons, cut into wedges
Black pepper to taste

Bring the stock to a boil, then add the saffron.  Keep the broth/saffron covered and simmering on low for at least 1 hour before you add it to the paella. 

Prepare the grill for direct medium-high heat (If you're using your weber kettle, fill the charcoal chimney up with coals.  Once they are hot, dump them into the middle of your grill and add 8 or so cold coals on top of the hot ones.)  Cover the bottom of your paella pan with foil to protect it a little from the fire.

Put the pan on the grill, and heat the olive oil.  This may take a minute or two. Add the chicken pieces to the grill surrounding the paella pan and let them cook. The boneless breast pieces and will need to be pulled off the grill long before the bone-in pieces, so have a clean plate standing by. As you remove the cooked breast pieces from the grill, add the chorizo and grill until browned. (This adds flavor to the sausage, and allows some of the grease to cook out so your paella tastes fresh and light, not greasy). Remove the chorizo and once cooled, cut into slices.

Once the oil is hot, add the onion and cook 5 minutes.  Add the garlic and cook one minute.  Add the tomatoes and cook, stirring constantly until the tomato mixture darkens and reduces to the consistency of jam.  Now you have a sofrito.  Woohoo!

Bring the broth mixture on your stove back to a slow boil. Add your rice to the sofrito in your paella pan and toast the rice for 2 minutes. Stir in the boiling broth mixture, peppers, squid, chicken, paprika, salt, a pinch of pepper, thyme, and chorizo. (Classic case of "do as I say, not as I do." Don't add the peas yet!).

Cover the grill and let cook for 35 minutes. After 35 minutes, check to make sure your paella is cooking. If some of the rice looks wetter than other parts of the pan, push it towards the center of the pan gently with a spoon. Once the rice is almost cooked, add the peas, push the clams down into the rice, and lay the shrimp on top. Cover the grill and cook another 10 minutes, or until the clams open up. Carefully remove the paella from the grill, remove the thyme sprigs, and serve with lemon wedges for people to squeeze over their paella before eating.

How to Smoke a Turkey on a Weber Kettle Grill

OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGodohmyGod, Look What I Did!! Seriously, I did that. And I maybe cried a few happy tears when I saw that bronze lacquered skin, and heard the meat thermometer beep as it reached 160 degrees.

This post should be called "The Smoked Turkey Experiment," because I essentially read a few vague web pages, threw this big boy in the Weber kettle, chugged a few glasses of wine to take the edge off my fretting, and hoped that instinct and the aforementioned meat thermometer would see me through. (The thermometer is amazing, FYI--it has a pager that goes off when the desired temp. is reached. Drunk grilling just got a whole lot easier.) Hypothesis: If you can start a charcoal grill, you can smoke a turkey. Conclusion: Affirmed.

Let the record show, I have never even roasted a turkey. I've never really roasted anything--when your parents keep your spoiled ass set up with kitchen gadgets like a countertop rotisserie, you don't roast, you rotisserize. If I can pull this off, anyone can, and should.

The smoked turkey had a beautiful, flavorful skin and the meat had a juicy texture that was tender, not chewy. Mr. Luz carved the bird, and he kept sort of giggling and mumbling "..so tender...falling off the bone..." And it was so smooth, rich, and smokey in flavor. Later, after a few bottles of wine, Mr. Luz called it 1.) the best turkey he'd ever tasted and 2.) in the top 5 best tasting meats he'd ever had. (When asked to do impressions, a wine-soaked Mr. Luz did: Mama BaCon--"I got you some tupperware, and it fits the whole universe." Papa BaCon--"The Hunley is a magnificent watercraft, simply stunning." Me: "F*** you, you f****** b****." He doesn't remember doing them, but they were pretty accurate.)

Instructions:

1. If using a brine, thaw your turkey at least 32 hours before you cook it. Once thawed, prepare the brine and soak your turkey for 24 hours plus. This Serious Eats Food Lab article is the best I've read on how and why you brine a turkey. Before smoking, thoroughly rinse your turkey in cold water. *NOTE: I didn't get the turkey in time to brine it, and it was still fantastic, but brining would take it to the next level. *

2. If not brining, thaw your turkey in the fridge for two days, or use the cold-water method just before smoking. (Soak in cold water, in the packaging, changing the water ever 30 minutes. It takes approximately 30 minutes per pound.)

3. Soak 3-4 handfuls of mesquite wood chips in water. 1 hour minimum for chips, 4+ hours for large knots of wood.

3. Once the turkey has thawed, remove giblets/neck from turkey and rinse inside and out. Pat dry. If your turkey is 16+ lbs. you might want to cut the entire turkey in half at this time. Yes, this is the cheater way to do it, but you'll avoid black turkey skin, and you won't fret/gulp wine for 8+ hours, wondering if the damned thing is even cooking.

4. Prepare 1 chimney of hot charcoal. Place a pan of liquid on the center of your bottom grate (water, wine, beer, broth, ect.) and spread the hot coals around it. Add 5-7 cold coals to the hot coals. Put the 3/4 of the soaked wood chips on top of the hot coals, open the bottom and top vents on the grill, and close the lid.

5. Cover your turkey inside and out with olive oil/melted butter and salt, pepper, dried thyme, and cayenne pepper. Put the turkey on the grill grate, breast side up, placing the turkey directly over the liquid-filled drip pan. (If you cut your turkey in half, put the meat facing up and the bones facing down.)

6. Every hour, quickly check your coals and baste your bird with more butter/olive oil. Halfway through smoking, prepare another chimney of hot coals and add it to your Weber grill, along with the last 1/4 of the wood chips. Your bird will generally need 30 minutes per pound to cook, and if you cut it in half then count the time based on the weight of 1/2 the turkey. Every time you open the lid, you increase your cooking time so do it sparingly. Trust me, it's cooking.

7. When a meat thermometer inserted in the breast but not touching the bone (ESSENTIAL) reaches 160 degrees, your bird is done and safe to eat. Carefully remove it from the grill, let it rest at least 15 minutes, carve, and serve.

Daring Bakers: Doubting My Status Over French Macarons

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

The Daring Baker's challenge this month, French Macarons, caused me to question myself, given the semantics of our fancy lil' baking/blogger group. "Daring"--okay, that one's fairly obvious. Are you daring? Do you want to be daring? I'm in the latter group. It's the second part I'm having a problem with. "Baker." This month's challenge made it all to clear that daring as I may be, I am no baker.

Normally I can fudge it, but these fussy little sugar bombs require about 20 minutes of real work, and (in my non-baker experience) about 5 hours of waiting, cussing, and general crabbiness. Along with patience, I also lack: a kitchen larger than a bathroom; more than one cookie sheet, an oven that cooks at the temperature you set it at. None of this matters when I'm cooking, but it makes all the difference when you're making cookies that are more temperamental than my sister, BaCon Bit, in her teenage years. I'm no baker and these cookies spent 5 hours and 20 minutes reminding me of that fact on one dark and stormy Sunday.

That said, they are freaking adorable. And they are crispy, and chewy, and versatile enough to make in all of your favorite flavor combinations. I chose to do a simple lemon cookie (adding lemon zest I'd dried in the oven to the almond flour when I ground it with my Salvation Army food processor) and a goat cheese buttercream (that I made in my Salvation Army Kitchenaid stand mixer). I'd make batches and batches to share if I could get more than 10 cookies off of the "non-stick" silicon mat I bought for this challenge--which cost as much as the SalVay food processor--without them completely disintegrating. Alas, I am no baker.

An adaptation of Claudia Fleming’s Macaron Recipe

2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.) Icing/Confectioner's/Powdered Sugar
2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.) Almond Flour (ground in your food processor to make your cookies silky)
2 Tbs. (25 g , .88 oz.) Granulated Sugar (I added 1/2 Tbs. since I heard it stabilizes the egg whites)
5 Egg Whites at room temperature (Google "aging egg whites" and use those if possible)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.

2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.

3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. (40-50 strokes total!! Make your first two or three strokes "fast" but not "hard" to combine the flour). If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.

4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip. (HATE the pastry bag!!) You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.

5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners or parchment paper. (Pipe as if you were doing a "dollop." Just put the tip close to the cookie sheet and pipe a sphere, don't make a circle and then "fill it in" or your cookies will be all air.)

6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). (This is to dry your macarons so they puff up to create the highly coveted "feet". I have a crappy oven so I just dried them on the counter for 40 min before baking.) Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.

7. Cool on a rack before filling.

Yield: 4 dozen.

Pear, Goat Cheese Strudel Recipe: The Daring Bakers Are At It Again!

How did it get to be the end of May already?!! I want this summer to be as long and sunny as possible--winter in D.C. almost did me in after 3 years in NOLA. Luckily, Liza Jane and I have decided that this is "The Summer of No Sleep," and we intend to enjoy every balmy, humid hour of every day from now until August. We shall have rockin' tans, and lots of mosquito bites.

All of this is to say that it's the 27th, so it's time to reveal the May Daring Bakers' Challenge.

This month's challenge was a rustic Strudel recipe. I'm not much of a baker, so I joined the Daring Bakers to learn. Sure, I braise, fry, smoke with confidence, but give me a recipe with exact measurements and I die a little inside.

And in the case of this strudel recipe, I fudge it, and use some "E.Lee Tips and Tricks" that go horribly wrong, and I end up throwing my second batch of dough on the floor before deciding to stick to the recipe on the third batch.

Luckily, following the recipe actually worked. Go figure. The real challenge to this recipe is the stretching. According to one Daring Baker, you should "be able to read a love letter through the dough" once it's properly stretched. Yikes! I opted to simply ensure that you could see my middle finger raised at batches #1 and #2 through my stretched batch #3, and it seemed to work out well enough.
The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

Once it was stretched, I filled my strudel dough with sliced super-ripe pears, dried cranberries, goat cheese and almonds, and then I topped it with a muscato-honey drizzle with nutmeg and fresh flowers. It was goaty, and super sweet, and pretty tasty. And so I say, take THAT jerkface strudel dough!


Preparation time
Total: 2 hours 15 minutes – 3 hours 30 minutes

**I substituted the Apple filling for a Pear, Goat Cheese filling, using the Kaffeehaus recipe as a guidepost***
2 Tbs. Golden Rum
3 Tbs. Dried Cranberries
1/4 tsp. Ground Nutmeg
1/4 cup Sugar
1 1/2 cups ground Honey-flavored Cookies (not low-fat)
1/2 cup Almond Slivers
2 lbs. peeled ripe Pears
Strudel Dough (recipe below)
5 Tbs. Butter, melted
4 oz. Goat Cheese
2 cups Muscato wine
1/4 tsp. Nutmeg
2 Tbs. Honey

1. Mix the rum and cranberries in a bowl. Mix the nutmeg and sugar in another bowl.

2. Put the rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Make the strudel dough as described below. Spread 3 tablespoons of the remaining melted butter over the dough using your hands. Sprinkle the buttered dough with the cookie crumbs. Spread the almonds about 3 inches from the short edge of the dough in a 6-inch-wide strip. Mix the pears with the cranberry-rum mixture, and the cinnamon sugar. Spread the mixture over the almonds. Dot with teaspoonfuls of the goat cheese.

3. Fold the short end of the dough onto the filling. Lift the tablecloth at the short end of the dough so that the strudel rolls onto itself. Transfer the strudel to the prepared baking sheet by lifting it. Curve it into a horseshoe to fit. Tuck the ends under the strudel. Brush the top with the remaining melted butter.

4. Bake the strudel for about 30 minutes or until it is deep golden brown. While the strudel is baking, bring the muscato to a slow boil over medium high heat in a small sauce pan. Add the nutmeg and honey, and boil until the liquid has reduced to 3/4 cup. When the strudel is done baking, cool for at least 30 minutes before drizzling with the honey glaze and slicing. Use a serrated knife and serve either warm or at room temperature. It is best on the day it is baked.

Strudel dough

1 1/3 cups Unbleached Flour
1/8 tsp. Salt
7 Tbs. Water, plus more if needed
2 Tbs. Vegetable Oil, plus additional for coating the dough
1/2 tsp. Cider Vinegar

1. Combine the flour and salt in a stand-mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix the water, oil and vinegar in a measuring cup. Add the water/oil mixture to the flour with the mixer on low speed. You will get a soft dough. Make sure it is not too dry, add a little more water if necessary.
Take the dough out of the mixer. Change to the dough hook. Put the dough ball back in the mixer. Let the dough knead on medium until you get a soft dough ball with a somewhat rough surface.

2. Take the dough out of the mixer and continue kneading by hand on an unfloured work surface. Knead for about 2 minutes. Pick up the dough and throw it down hard onto your working surface occasionally. Shape the dough into a ball and transfer it to a plate. Oil the top of the dough ball lightly. Cover the ball tightly with plastic wrap. Allow to stand for 30-90 minutes (longer is better).

3. It would be best if you have a work area that you can walk around on all sides like a 36 inch round table or a work surface of 23 x 38 inches. Cover your working area with table cloth, dust it with flour and rub it into the fabric. Put your dough ball in the middle and roll it out as much as you can. Pick the dough up by holding it by an edge. This way the weight of the dough and gravity can help stretching it as it hangs. Using the back of your hands to gently stretch and pull the dough. You can use your forearms to support it.

4. The dough will become too large to hold. Put it on your work surface. Leave the thicker edge of the dough to hang over the edge of the table. Place your hands underneath the dough and stretch and pull the dough thinner using the backs of your hands. Stretch and pull the dough until it's about 2 feet (60 cm) wide and 3 feet (90 cm) long, it will be tissue-thin by this time. Cut away the thick dough around the edges with scissors. The dough is now ready to be filled.

Tips
- Before pulling and stretching the dough, remove your jewelry from hands and wrists, and wear short-sleeves;
- To make it easier to pull the dough, you can use your hip to secure the dough against the edge of the table;
- Few small holes in the dough is not a problem as the dough will be rolled, making (most of) the holes invisible.

How to Brown Meat Perfectly

I always thought that there wasn't much to browning a great ribeye or my pre-braised short ribs--a hot pan, some tongs, and I was ready to go. A little research has since revealed that browning meat is fairly scientific. When meat comes into contact with a hot surface under the right conditions, the Maillard reaction occurs, which means the proteins become more complex. This gives your food a beautiful color and crackling texture, but it also intensifies the flavor.

Here are a few tips that I've collected as I've browned my way through more than a few pounds of pork, beef, and chicken:

Rinse the meat before you season it (particularly if you used a salty marinade), and pat dry thoroughly.

Season with salt and pepper immediately before searing. If you let the salt sit on the meat, it may draw moisture to the surface. This will result in you steaming, rather than searing, your meat.

Use a heavy-bottomed pan, like a cast-iron skillet. Avoid non-stick contraptions.

Use medium high heat, and heat the skillet for at least two minutes before adding the oil and the meat.

Add less meat, or get a bigger pan. You want plenty of space for the heat to circulate, and you don't want to cool the pan down with lots of refrigerated beef going in it all at once.

Use tongs! They avoid splatter burns, and give you the ability to hold onto the meat to position it for optimum browning.

For large cuts like steaks and roasts, let the meat sit a full minute longer than you want to before turning. (I have to count to 60. Really. In the pic above, I should have let it brown a little longer.) You want plenty of sear on each side, and this is easiest and fastest on the first pass. Use the tongs, and brown each and every inch that you can.

For tricky items like meatballs, use the "scootch" method. When you think it's time to turn the meatballs, use the tongs and carefully press the bottom of the meatball down onto the pan and try to "scootch" it 1/3 of an inch. If it scootches easily, then turn. If it resists then let it continue to brown until it releases from the bottom of the pan.

How to Smoke Food on a Weber Kettle

I've held out long enough. I hereby declare that it's Officially Grillin' Season, even if I have to do it in a parka. (Not that I own a parka, it's just fun to say. Parkuh.)

I love grilling on my weber kettle. It gets at the basics of good cooking--caramelization, heat, and complementary flavors. Also, I get to set things on fire, enjoy the sunshine, and drink beer while I do it. Ever since I booted my 10th-grade-boyfriend out of the way and cooked my first steak over a tiny camping grill, I've been addicted. I've also had a strict rule about letting boys near my fire. That sounds sort of wrong.

In celebration of Grillin' Season, here are some quick tips and instructions for smoking food over a charcoal grill. It's not exhaustive or recipe-specific, but it'll take the mystery out of both grilling and smoking food and leave you a little room to experiment on your own.

1. Using a charcoal chimney: Remove the upper grate used as a cooking surface, but leave the smaller grate at the bottom of the grill in place. Open the vents on the bottom of the grill. Fill the chimney with coals and stuff tight balls of paper in the cavity underneath the coals. (This will make sure the paper lights on fire, rather than simply smolders and ashes.)

Light the paper on fire in several places and observe. If the coals smoke profusely, but you don't feel a significant source of heat after the smoking stops, carefully add more balls of paper to the smoldering paper underneath the chimney. Oxygen is important, so fan the paper underneath the chimney if it's a humid day, or if the breeze is light.

2. Soak your smoking wood chips of choice in water for at least a half hour. Soak longer if possible. I like to use 2 large handfuls of mesquite wood.

3. Once the coals on the top of the chimney are mostly white, and the inner coals are glowing red, carefully dump half of the coals on one side of the lower grill, and half on the other, leaving the middle 1/3 of the lower grill empty. Add 4-5 fresh coals on top of the hot ones on either side. If you're smoking ribs, add an entire loose layer of fresh coals to keep your grill hot for the time it takes to smoke them.

3. Carefully place an empty aluminum casserole pan in the middle of your grill, between the hot coals. (And Lordy, will they be hot!) Use long tongs to move the hot coals, if necessary.

Pour beer, fruit juice, and/or water into the pan to add flavor to the smoke and keep the drippings from charring. Add the wood chips on top of your charcoal, and replace the cooking-surface-grate.

Close the lid on your grill for 5 minutes, making sure the vents are open on the top to allow air to flow over the coals. (This will get the grill hot, so your food sears and is less likely to stick.) Add your food to the grill, placing it directly over the coals for 2-3 minutes. Here I'm using a smaller pork tenderloin, which has been marinated overnight in Walkerswood jerk seasoning.
4. Turn the meat, again placing it over the coals for 2-3 minutes and closing the lid.

If you desire more caramelization on the surface of your meat (I certainly do--it tastes yummy and keeps the juices in) take your chances with taking the lid off and turning the meat frequently until you are just under your desired doneness on the outside. Smoking will further caramelize the outside of your meat.

5. After the initial sear, move the meat to the center of the grill, over the pan of liquid. I smoked this 2 lb. pork tenderloin for 20 minutes and it was done perfectly. For smoking times on specific cuts and sizes of meat, comment below and I'll do my best to reply quickly with the proper smoking time after I check a number of sources. (One of them being my fantastic Weber Cookbook.)
6. To check the doneness of your meat, PLEASE do not hack into it with a knife. Use the Finger Test. Pork should be medium to medium-well.
7. Remove the meat from the grill and let sit for at least 10 minutes. On heating, all the juices in meat rush from the center, and if you cut it right away those juices will be released. If you let it rest, the juices are reabsorbed and your meat stays tender and flavorful. 8. Serve, and enjoy!
To counteract the extreme spice of the jerk seasoning, and to complement the nutmeg and brown sugar flavors in the marinade, I made an orange bacon chutney to go with my smoked pork. I just fried up some bacon (a regular occurrence in my household), sautéed some onion in the bacon grease, deglazed the pan with orange juice, and added chicken stock, agave, and spices until everything tasted fantastic. Then I blended, and served.

The Gumbo Shop's Chicken Andouille Sausage Gumbo Recipe

The Gumbo Shop is one of my family's favorite places to visit in New Orleans. On one of our first trips to the city, we just stopped in for dinner, and we were ushered through the courtyard to a small carriage house that sat a few tables. I think we all fell in love with our waiter, Michael, and his "dahlin"s and "sugar"s, and his genuine love for New Orleans. We also fell in love with the Gumbo Shop's food. Here's their signature recipe for Chicken Andouille Sausage Gumbo, with a few tweaks and tricks thrown in for added flavor. (Click here for their entire cookbook.  You'll want to have it on hand, trust me.) This recipe has been voted the "Best Gumbo in New Orleans" in the New Orleans Gambit for something like 10 years running, so I'm happy to share it with you. Enjoy!

Ingredients
2 1/2 lbs chicken thighs/legs
8 cups chicken broth
1 lb frozen okra (cut)
½ cup plus 2 Tbls. cooking oil
½ cup all purpose flour
2 cups chopped onions
1 cup chopped green pepper
½ cup chopped celery
1 16 ounce can chopped tomatoes with green chilies
¾ lb Andouille sausage or Smoked Sausage, sliced
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. basil
½ tsp. sage
½ tsp. black pepper
½ tsp white pepper
½ tsp. cayenne pepper
2 tsp. salt

Remove the skin from the chicken. Cover chicken with water and simmer for about one hour until chicken is tender and easily removed from the bones. Allow chicken to cool, remove from bones and set aside.


As the chicken is cooking, chop the onion, pepper, and celery (aka, the Holy Trinity), and set aside.

Slice the sausage into 1/2 inch rounds, and set aside.

Thaw the okra, and saute in 2 tbs. of oil. You want to cook the okra until most of the ropiness is gone, and has caramelized a little on the bottom of the pot. I find that a thin-bottomed pot is best for this, because you really want some color and fancy cookery just doesn't allow you to burn things like your grandma's hand-me-down cast iron stock pot.

Once the okra is cooked, stir in the can of tomatoes. This will deglaze all of the caramelized okra, and incorporate it into your gumbo. Stir until all of the caramelized okra is released.

Next step: Making the roux! Heat 1/2 cup oil in a heavy bottomed pot. You want to use a metal spatula to stir the roux. Plastic spoons WILL melt, and wooden spoons often do not cover enough surface area. When the oil is hot, but not smoking, stir in 1/2 cup flour a little at a time until it is all incorporated. To make a roux, you have to stir constantly for up to 45 minutes. (Trust me, it's worth it! Just make yourself a bloody mary and enjoy the simplicity of your life at this exact moment...just you, your bloody mary, and your roux.) Place the spatula flush on the bottom of the pot, and stir. And stir. And stir. And sip your drink. And stir.

I like a "chocolate roux," so called because of it's resemblance to chocolate. My mom likes what she calls a "peanut butter roux." The peanut butter roux takes probably 20 minutes less than the chocolate, and still tastes yummy. If you're not a seasoned roux-maker, and you have to jump ship early, at least stick with your stirring until it looks and smells like peanut butter.

As soon as the roux is finished, dump in the veggies and saute in the roux until soft. Feel free to let the veggies stick to the bottom of the pan a little. (Also, please note that this is the second thing I've told you to burn. Love, love, love making gumbo.)

When the veggies are done, add the sausage, and tomato and okra mixture. Cook for approx. 10 minutes. Add the spices, broth, and the chicken and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat, simmer for 1 1/5 hour with the lid off. Taste and adjust spices...it should be herby and a little spicy. Serve over a small portion of rice, with hot sauce. And maybe another bloody mary, for good measure. You deserve it.

Tips and tricks:

• This recipe freezes well, with our without rice, but the pepper seems to leech out so you'll want to add more when you reheat.
• You can use canned chicken to save time.