Posted by Lucy Baker, April 25, 2008 at 1:45 PM
Today's cook the book recipe, excerpted from The Oprah Magazine Cookbook, is for a sensational Creole Gumbo straight from the Big Easy. Chef Leah Chase, owner of the restaurant Dooky Chase and arguably the Queen of Creole Cuisine, pulls out all the stops. Her version includes fresh crabs, oysters, and shrimp; veal and chicken; and two kinds of sausage. The recipe makes a lot—it serves 8 to 10—so mix up some Sazeracs and prepare it with a group of friends. This is soul food at its absolute best.
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Posted by The Gurgling Cod, December 8, 2007 at 1:30 PM
Sunday Night Soups, where each week The Gurgling Cod shows up to offer a soup appropriate to the week's Sunday Night Football game on NBC.
This Sunday evening sees the renewal of the Carbetbag bowl, as the Colts, former Charm City NFL franchisees, return home to face the Ravens, who stepped out on the long-suffering fans of Cleveland, where they were known as the Browns, but were required to leave their colors and nickname in Cleveland for the new Browns. Got that?
Brian Billick coaches the Ravens, and could be seen last week blowing kisses to Rodney Harrison after the Patriots safety snared an interception during the Patriots' Monday Night victory and drew the Ravens' coach's attention to the play he had just made. So some sort of lip-smackingly delicious soup seems warranted. Peyton Manning, of New Orleans, will also be participating in this contest and is likely to have an impact on the outcome.
The game is in Baltimore, which is in Maryland. As Thomas Cecil pointed out back in 1630, in Maryland, "The Sea, the Bayes of Chesopeack, and Delaware, and generally all the Rivers, doe abound with Fish of severall sorts; for many of them we have no English names: There are Whales, Sturgeons very large and good, and in great aboundance; Grampuses, Porpuses, Mullets, Ttruts, Soules, Place, Mackerell, Perch, Crabs, Oysters, Cockles, and Mussles."
Billick. Manning. Cecil. The circumstances warrant a crab gumbo. Back in October, we saw a chicken-based no-okra gumbo for Saints-Seahawks. This time, consider a crab and okra gumbo, like this one, adapted from Gourmet.
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Posted by The Serious Eats Team, November 23, 2007 at 11:00 AM
Editor's note: A couple of weeks ago I saw the fine writer Sara Roahen give a talk at the Southern Foodways Symposium on boudin, the pork, liver, and rice sausage most often found in the Louisiana countryside. She was smart, articulate, funny, and self-deprecating, so when she was finished I asked if she would like to contribute to Serious Eats. In honor of Thanksgiving, here's Sara's take on turkey gumbo. We hope you'll be hearing more from Sara on Serious Eats in the coming months. Her book, Gumbo Tales, is coming out in February, and we will definitely be giving it away. It's a terrific book. —Ed
Words and Recipes by Sara Roahen | Last Thanksgiving, which arrived a long month and a half after my reluctant departure from New Orleans, I resolved to kick my homesickness (I had lived in New Orleans for seven years) by injecting a new tradition into my Wisconsin family’s holiday feasting: turkey bone gumbo. I imported andouille from Jacob’s World Famous Andouille & Sausage in La Place, Louisiana, and I used Louisiana bay leaves, which are fresher and mellower than the ones sold in small jars in most grocery store spice aisles. I also made a potato salad with green onion mayonnaise from Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen, which my husband, Matt, and I like to eat in our gumbo. Many Louisianians approve of this pairing, and so did many in our Wisconsin crowd. So much so that this year, even though my Thanksgiving visit came two weeks early, we held our second-annual Roahen turkey bone gumbo dinner. Thirty people attended. Only one complained openly about my liberal use of cayenne.
Though this year we roasted a turkey so that we would have a carcass so that we could have gumbo again, usually turkey bone gumbo is something of an afterthought: what one cooks in order to make good use of the entire Thanksgiving bird once it has become carnage. The same method could be—and is in Louisiana—applied to any fowl or game. One of the most exhilarating gumbos I’ve tasted came from the pot of my friend and food enthusiast Brooks Hamaker, a Louisiana native. If ever I doubted his claims of being a huntsman, he earned my respect with the feather that I pulled from my teeth while enjoying his deep, dark Mardi Gras duck gumbo one year.
It’s amazing how much meat falls off the most meticulously carved turkey carcass after two hours in a simmering stock pot. And the stock produced is so flavorful that turkey bone gumbo requires little more than a robust roux, some seasoning vegetables, and ample salt and pepper. I like to brighten it up with filé powder and lemon juice just before serving, though both additions are optional.
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Posted by The Gurgling Cod, October 13, 2007 at 12:00 PM
Sunday Night Soups, where each week The Gurgling Cod shows up to offer a soup appropriate to the week’s Sunday Night Football game on NBC.
This Sunday night, the New Orleans Saints head to Seattle in search of their first win. Seattle is mainly known for rain, fish, and coffee, so let's hope the Saints remember to pack a few muffulettas from Central Grocery for the trip. (In all seriousness, attempt no departure from New Orleans without at least one of these in your carry-on. Twenty-four hours after your departure, when you are still stuck in Atlanta, begging the gate agent for a connecting flight to somewhere, anywhere, that does not reek of Cinnabon, you will be glad to have a half or a quarter of the miraculous sandwich that travels as well as the Harlem Globetrotters.)
You could, I suppose, hack a salmon into eighths, then braise it in a Tanzanian Peaberry, but why bother? To cheer on the Saints, you'll want a fortifying gumbo. This gumbo uses roux as its base, and if you have a TV in sight of your stove, making the roux will the perfect thing to keep your hands busy while you watch the more entertaining Patriots-Cowboys game on Sunday afternoon.
Gumbo is good for what ails you, but it is not a vaccine that must be made according to a set formula, so you could and should vary ingredients based on what is good where you are. Fish, shellfish, cured meats, sausage, other vegetables—the roux is really the foundation for what pleases you. I did this one on the first anniversary of Katrina, and folks seemed to enjoy it.
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