Seeking Gumbo Advice

Amata's post below regarding what to do with a leftover goose, inspired me to make a duck and sausage gumbo this weekend. I've never made a duck gumbo before though I have made plenty of seafood and chicken gumbo from scratch.

I'm picking up a couple of ducks at Paulina tonight. I'm going to use one of them to make a broth because it seems like heresy to me to make a duck gumbo with chicken broth.

I'll use the meat from the broth bird to supplement my gumbo. My question with regard to the second duck is this: Should I debone the duck meat before adding it to the gumbo or should I quarter it, brown the and season the quarters and add it to the gumbo bones, skin and, meat? It seems to me that the latter will add to a much more intense gumbo broth. But, I'm concerned that the long cooking time will cause the quarters to break apart, possibly leaving bones in the finsihed product.

Hopefully, some of you kitchen pros can give me some tips.

Hi Will,

Get the Paulina butchers to bone out the breasts and remove the leg/thighs for you. If you ask nicely, they'll probably bone out the leg/thighs for you also. If not, it's pretty easy to peel the meat away yourself. Ask them to chop or saw the carcasses into 2" pieces.

Roast the bones on a cookie sheet until light caramel color. Add rough cut mirepoix to the bones and continue roasting until more of a medium caramel color.

Proceed with your brown duck stock, skimming often. Simmer for three or four hours. Strain and cool overnight or keep going if you're ready.

Gather your mis en place for the gumbo. Cut the duck meat into spoon size pieces. (You might want to reserve the breasts for another meal, you'll have a lot of meat and giblets from two the ducks).

Prepare your roux to desired color in a separate pot and set aside until ready to proceed. Brown your duck meat in small batches over medium high heat to develop a nice fond in your soup pot. Proceed as you wish...building your gumbo, with no danger of loose bones.

Let us know about your results.

Thanks for the great advice, ER. I'll let you know how it turns out.

When I make gumbo, I never pre-cook my poultry. I do debone it (or use boneless, skinless from the butcher) but I let it melt into the gumbo as it simmers. I know the gumbo is approaching eating stage when the meat's falling apart.

Then again, I simmer my gumbo for two days to build all the flavors.

Hey Will,

your gumbo plans sound great, and I'm looking forward to hearing how it came out.

Since there are so many "smokers" on this site, I thought I'd mention that Justin Wilson has a recipe for gumbo made with smoked duck or smoked goose. I bet that would be excellent as well.

Evil R, it's really wonderful that you share your professional expertise with the rest of us so generously. Thanks for the tips in this thread and elsewhere.

Happy New Year to all!

Amata

I've had good results preparing my dark roux in the microwave. I can save 45 minutes of stirring time this way.

Well, the gumbo is ready and my fellow southern compatriots are on the way over to watch the Sugar Bowl tonight. Many thanks to Ron and others for your advice.

I made the brown stock per Ron's instructions except that I added half a split orange to the stock. It added a wonderful slight flavor to the stock. The cooking time for the brown stock was about two hours

For the gumbo, I used two whole ducks from Paulina. Two pounds of Paulina's andouille and half a rotisserie chicken that I had sitting in my fridge made up the rest of the meat options.

I cooked the Roux (again with a little cayenne) to milk chocolate color, added the trinity to the roux and let it cook for about 8 minutes, I then added the sausage, a little cayenne and three bay leaves to the roux/trinity mixture. It cooked probably 4-5 minutes to relase the fat from the sausage. I then added 12 cups of the stock and cooked it over a bare simmer for four hours adding the unbrowned chicken and duck to the roux.

I must say, its an excellent gumbo. Rich and smoky tasting. I hope my guests like it as much as I do.

Raul, I'd love to hear your instructions for microwave roux.

Hey Will, I've made this gumbo and it's turned out very well. I've slightly adapted this from Food & Wine Magazine.

Regards,
RevrendAndy


Duck and Wild Mushroom Gumbo

10 Servings




1 4-5 lb. duck, excess fat removed, backbone removed, quartered

3 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 cup flour

1 1/2 pounds assorted wild mushrooms

1 1/2 cups onions, chopped

3/4 cup celery, chopped

3/4 cup red bell peppers, chopped

7 garlic cloves, minced

12 ounces stout beer

6 cups chicken stock

4 teaspoons Emeril Essence, or cajun seasoning

2 bay leaves

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

5 cups freshly cooked white rice

1/2 cup green onions, chopped

1/2 cup parsley, chopped




1. Heat heavy large pot over medium-high heat until hot, about 3 minutes. Sprinkle duck with 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Add to pot, skin side down, and sear until golden brown, about 8 minutes per side. Using tongs, transfer duck to plate.

2. Add vegetable oil, then flour to drippings in pot; stir with wooden spoon to blend well. Reduce heat to medium and stir constantly until roux is chocolate-brown color, about 25 minutes. Increase heat to medium-high if necessary. Add mushrooms, onion, celery, bell pepper, and garlic to roux and cook until mushrooms and vegetables are soft, stirring frequently, about 4 minutes. Add stout; stir to blend. Add chicken broth, Emeril's Essence, bay leaves, thyme, cayenne, and remaining 2 teaspoon salt; stir to blend well. Return duck pieces to pot. Increase heat and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer uncovered until duck is tender, skimming foam from surface and stirring occasionally, about 1 1/2 hours.

3. Using tongs, transfer duck to plate; cool until easy to handle, about 20 minutes. Remove meat from bones; discard bones and skin. Cut meat into 1-inch pieces. Spoon fat off top of gumbo. Return meat to gumbo; season to taste with salt and pepper.

4. Divide cooked white rice among 10 bowls. Ladle gumbo over. Sprinkle with green onions and parsley and serve.

MAKE AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Cool slightly. Refrigerate uncovered until cold. Cover and keep refrigerated. Bring to simmer before continuing.

I made a massive batch of duck & andouille gumbo last week and ended up freezing the bulk of it. Some friends that had it last night wanted the recipe, so I typed it up for them. (They'd never made any sort of gumbo before.) So, don't mind the fact that I go into somewhat excessive detail - it's literally a copy and paste from the email.

I didn't really use any single recipe for this gumbo, I sorta picked
and chose what I liked from various places and modified things to suit
my judgement.

For starters - you'll need Creole seasoning. (Taken from Chuck
Taggart's Gumbo Pages. http://www.gumbopages.com/recipe-page.html )

2 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons dried oregano leaves
2 tablespoons dried sweet basil
1 tablespoon dried thyme leaves
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon white pepper
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon celery seed
5 tablespoons sweet paprika

Combine in food processor and pulse until well-blended, or mix
thoroughly in a large bowl. The recipe doubles or triples well. You
can cheat and just buy Emeril's Essence or Paul Proudhomme's "Magic" -
but what's the fun in that?

You'll be making your own duck stock from scratch - this project is a
labor of love, and there's nothing fast about it.

For the stock you'll need:

1 gallon of cold water
The duck
An onion, chopped into 2" pieces
A handful of carrots, peeled and broken in half
4 - 5 stalks of celery
A bouquet garni - http://www.herb.co.za/cooking/bouquetgarni.htm
A dozen peppercorns
5 - 6 cloves of garlic

Here's the other ingredients -

1 cup fat (This can be canola oil, clarified butter, duck fat, goose lard...)
1 cup flour
2 large onions, chopped
2 bell peppers, chopped
4 ribs celery, chopped
4 - 6 cloves garlic, minced
1 gallon duck stock
3 - 4 jalapeno peppers
2 - 4 teaspoons of crushed red pepper, or to taste
2 bay leaves
2 teaspoons Creole seasoning, or to taste
1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 4.5 - 5lb duck, breasts deboned and the rest cut into 2" pieces on a saw
2 pounds andouille, cut into 1/2" pieces
1 bunch scallions (green onions), tops only, chopped
File powder to taste

Go to Paulina Market and buy a duck, and ask them to bone out the
breasts and cut the rest of the bird into the 2" pieces. I'd get the
Andouille and some goose lard (it's in the fridge near the milk and
eggs, you don't want the lard with grieben in it.) at the same time.
The goose lard is purely a redundancy in case you have an accident while
making roux for your first time, it's a backup in case your duck fat
is ruined.

Take your duck and lightly score the skin on the breasts and any other
pieces with skin attached. Separate out any bones you can from the
bird, and place the rest of the meaty/fatty pieces in a steamer basket
in your stock pot. Steam this meat for 45 minutes to render out any
fat, and then boil the oil until it's clear. (When all water
evaporates out, the rendered fat will turn clear.) You should have ~1
cup of rendered fat - save this. Coat the meat in creole seasoning.

While you're doing this you'll want to brown the bones on a lightly
oiled baking sheet for 30-45 minutes on 400 to 450. Add your stock
veggies to the sheet after 30-45 minutes and then brown for an
additional 15 minutes. Deglaze the pan, taking care to preserve any
browned bits. Put 2 teaspoons of oil into the stock pot, and working
in batches brown all of the duck meat in the pan, you're looking to
develop a fond which will be deglazed as the stock cooks. Add the
bones, all of the duck parts, the roasted veggies and peppercorns to
the cold water in your stockpot. Bring it to a boil and then simmer
for 4 to 5 hours, skimming the protein scum off as it rises to the
top. After simmering you'll want to lay cheesecloth in a colander and
then strain the stock through it - I set my colander inside of a large
pot and then just pour into it. Remove the veggies from the colander
and pick through the meat by hand, you're looking to remove any bones
that might remain in it.

Chill the stock. Do not just place it in the fridge - it'll just heat
the fridge up. Bacteria thrive between 40 degrees and 140 degrees
farenheit - you need to get it out of that zone as fast as possible.
Your best bet would be to freeze bags of ice in advance and drop them
into the stock to chill it, as well as placing the stockpot in the
sink and filling the sink with cold water. (I cheated and placed my
stock on my back deck, it was really cold outside.) Once the stock has
chilled you can simply spoon any remaining fat off of the top and
discard it. Your stock should jiggle like jello when chilled - a spoon
shouldn't sink when placed on top of it. Transfer the chilled stock to
a different vessel, to wait until it's ready to be added back into the
gumbo.

Roux! Roux is often called "cajun napalm" - be -very- careful while
making this stuff. You're going to want to take the reserved duck fat
(1 cup of it) and heat it in the pot over medium high heat, stirring
with a wooden spoon. (Plastic might melt, metal will conduct the heat.
Ow.) Slowly add in the cup of flour, wisking as you add it - it'll
foam a little bit as you add the flour, this is normal. Make sure you
wisk it, as it'll want to form clumps. After all of the flour is
added, start stirring continuously - for the next 25 to 35 minutes.
We're looking for a chocolate color, and an almost chocolaty smell.
The cooking roux -will- smoke, this is normal - that's where the smoky
flavor comes from. If the phone rings or someone comes to the door,
just remove it from the heat - it'll burn in seconds if left unstirred
and you'll need to begin anew. (Using the backup goose lard.) If it suddenly gets black flecks in it, it means it's been burnt and you'll need to start again. Using lower heat will lengthen the cook time, but lower the chance of burning it. After it reaches the chocolaty smell and color, transfer it into a heat proof bowl to cool, this'll stop it from cooking further. I let mine cool outside, as it'll be smoking for a bit as it cools. (I just set it inside the grill and close the lid.)

Toss a teaspoon of olive oil in the now empty and clean stockpot and
heat it until it just begins to smoke a little. (You'll see tiny wisps
on the surface before it actually burns - that's what you're looking
for.) Brown the meat, again you're looking to create a fond on the
bottom of the pot. It should only take a few minutes. Once that's
done, add the onions and stir, browning until they begin to wilt.

There's two schools of thought - one calls for adding all the veggies
and letting them stew away into nothing as the gumbo cooks. (I follow
that one.) The other calls for adding half at the start and the other
half 30 - 60 minutes before you stop cooking - to let them retain more
texture. Add the other veggies now, depending on how you'd like the
finished gumbo. Let them cook for a couple minutes and then add the
stock and remaining ingredients (except the file powder). Bring this
all to a boil, and then reduce heat to a simmer, and let it cook for
at least four or five hours, stirring occasionally. I let it reduce
and thicken a bit for the first couple hours and then put a lid on it
to stop it from reducing further. Some people talk of letting it stew
for multiple days - I only wish I was that patient. It smells way too
good to last that long in my house.

The file powder goes in last, you add it just before serving and let
it cook for 15 minutes or so - making sure not to boil it. (It gets a
little stringy when boiled.)

And that's gumbo! Feel free to ask me if you have any questions.

I used to make duck gumbo fairly regularly, making stock from the bones, adding the de-boned meat to the roux just to seize it up, not to brown. The best one I ever made, I made gribenes out of the skin, and just before serving added a few shucked oysters to the gumbo and then let people garnish with the gribenes. The contrast between the silken oysters and the still crunchy gribenes, surrounded by the rich duck gumbo flavor, was really good.