cook: chicken & sausage gumbo

I had a chicken and sausage gumbo at Empty Bowls, and so I knew for the Lenten season, I wanted to make a seafood gumbo and even bought the Holy Trinity ingredients. However, I also had two thigh and drumstick, bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces and decided instead to buy a package of Andouille sausage and more chicken wings while at the grocery outlet. The gumbo all starts with the roux: equal parts butter and flour, which at the beginning starts as a thick paste, but gets a bit liquid as it slowly heats. While my roux slowly got dark and which I kept whisking to prevent it from scorching, I diced onions, a red bell pepper, a green bell pepper, celery and carrots.

 

An hour later after vegetables were chopped, the roux was chocolate colored, and so I started browning the chicken and dagnabit, I scorched a little bit of the chicken. Since I had already turned off the heat of my roux in order to not let that scorch and ruin the taste of the gumbo, I removed the chicken and scraped off bits that were burnt as well as washed my Dutch oven. I then resumed frying and there was now a lovely brown fond on the bottom of my pot.

 

In went the vegetables to which I added bay leaves, fresh thyme, sprinklings of Old Bay seasoning and salt and then water to prevent scorching again of the Dutch oven and to de-glaze it. Once the vegetables were softened, I added more water, chicken broth, the roux and the chicken (not pictured) and more sprinklings of salt since I didn't season the chicken, and oh shoot! I forgot to brown the Andouille sausage and so squirted olive oil into the bottom of that sauce pan, which I had cleaned after scraping all the roux into the bigger pot. I sliced the Andouille sausage and browning over medium high heat.

 

I likewise de-glazed the bottom of my sauce pot with water after frying the sausage, which also had a nice fond and which I de-glazed and then dumped the water into the Dutch oven. People who ask me my recipes say I am always not telling them a key ingredient because their dish didn't turn out the same. And yes, I forget sometimes to mention a key ingredient. In this instance or blog, I forgot to mention the 8 cloves of garlic I almost forgot, but mashed in my mortar with a pestle and added much later in the vegetables. Since I didn't have the gumbo file powder, I used Old Bay. And then I let the pot simmer covered for 35 minutes and then left the lid aside to simmer another 10 minutes.

  

For the last 5 minutes, I added sliced okra to further thicken it and just because I loved its bright green color.

I did not add cayenne powder to the gumbo because of Patrick and a neighbor like him who can't handle too much spice. However, the Crystal hot sauce remedied that.

In the same pot in which I had cooked the roux and the sausage, I lastly cooked rice. Atop the rice, the gumbo soup was perfect. The weather is not too cold, nor too warm, ideal for Louisiana cooking. Gumbo is a dish I would make again for the Hawaiian potlucks as I can toss it in a crock pot to keep hot and there is always steamed rice to go with all the mains at their parties. But I think for the next Lenten Friday, I want to cook shrimp étouffée, which will likely elicit a complaint of stew again?

cook: spring harvest + fridge clean out

Before leaving for spring break, I traded my fancy nonstick pans from Food 52 with a friend who got a new stove and couldn't use her wok anymore on it. I also came away from the food pantry at school with a whole head of cauliflower and lots of heads of broccoli. I cut up the cauliflower and used my "new" wok by cleaning out my fridge and frying rice. I diced cauliflower, onions, carrots, celery and minced garlic. I also sliced medallions of Japanese spicy sausage and Chinese sweet sausage as well as added frozen corn and peas.

 

For the stir fry sauce, I broke out my bottles of oyster and soy and Maggi seasoning. I guess I don't care much for a dry rice or for it sticking to the bottom of the wok because I added chicken broth and then water to de-glaze.

Not bad.

Healthy. From the broccoli as well as leeks and spring onions from a harvest, I made a quiche AND a soup. And I deviated from Gordon Ramsay's recipe by not adding goat cheese and walnuts though I did use heavy whipping cream and a bit of Better than Bouillon.

My quiche seemed overcooked to me though gorgeous and not as high and fluffy as I wanted, BUT the soup was the hit for the neighbor gathering called a spring fling.

A few neighbors asked for my leftover jars of broccoli soup, but I do have one for me and Patrick in the fridge. From the public library I checked out this promising book about how Banksy has saved art history.

My spring break had a promising start. A great outrigger canoe practice UNTIL I hyperextended (my erector spinae)on a stroke and which HURT. When I should've rested, I instead swam instead of the rest, ice, compression, compression. And spring break is now Friday, and so I think I can now lengthen and strengthen that muscle with double knees to chest stretch and some side bends where I stand with my feet shoulder-width apart and gently bend to the side, holding for a few seconds and some cat cow on my hands and knees. I canceled my practice for this Saturday and will do plank and wall squats when the pain completely disappears. I should not have swam that mile Tuesday night, but afterward, I did go to Gourmet Haus Staudt with my friend Cybil and drank a lovely winterberry cider and ate pork schnitzel with fries and salad. 

We were gonna stay, so she could do calligraphy and I stitch, but I forgot my reading glasses AND my side was hurting. My side still hurt yesterday when I and Cybil and her friend, Lyra also went to the new Korean market and emporium called Jagalchi, and hurt like the dickens when I swam a half mile later. I was more comfortable just crouched at the end of the pool like Spider-Man. My side still hurts, but I'm going to the ceramics studio this morning and tomorrow. Maybe I'll cook a couple more dishes like a gumbo and a Bolognese after I get back from Costco tonight. Maybe I'll even do some laundry and some linoleum carving too.