I don't know Alek, not sure how you make a gumbo that dark without having made a good roux. And I love how it looks like you left a little fat in the mix too. Really, that looks like a fantastic bowl of gumbo.

BR wrote:I don't know Alek, not sure how you make a gumbo that dark without having made a good roux. And I love how it looks like you left a little fat in the mix too. Really, that looks like a fantastic bowl of gumbo.

Thanks. It felt like I was stirring a light blonde roux forever but when it started getting dark it went fast. I ended up skimming about half the fat off the leftover after they had time to set up in the fridge overnight.

Back from 5 days in Nola that included a trip out to Cajun Country, I'll try and get to posting it but so it seems, it's pretty hard get a reply on anything not Hot Doug's these days. Anyways thats all I want to eat this week and did so last night. Took a couple bone in chops and rubbed them down with Hebert's "How-u-Call-It" Cajun seasoning and cooked those in pan followed by a quick bake. Served with Poche's chow chow relish on top alongside some bacon drenched green beans and Worcestershire mushrooms. Hot damn.


It's that time of the year

Looks awesome, Da Beef. I love the proportion of green beans to bacon.

Duh!!! That's cuz you didn't threaten to throw a bottle of Dixie at anyone who doesn't like green beans. Silly man!

PS. Looks delicious! Look forward to seeing more

DaBeef, your posts always make me hungry and I'm not a big meat eater. This looks like something my husband would love.
He grew up on the south side of Chicago and thought it was hysterical that I made pork chops in a crock pot. What is your stove/oven method? I looked on the sites linked to Hebert's and Posche's and didn't find the two products mentioned, but even if I can't get those, I still want to learn how you cooked the chops. The beans/ bacon looks great too.

Two years back, my husband and I enjoyed 8 days in New Orleans. Such wonderful food and fun, but there were so many meals and photos, it is too daunting to post. Perhaps someday, I'll go back and write/post places that I certainly planned to share but never did!

Meanwhile, thanks for your post!

Looks delicious!! Love the idea of the bacon with the green beans. Reminds me of my grandma's cooking where she would boil green beans with bacon and onions. Yum!

Poche's got a nice mention in Saveur last month. How is their andouille?

janeyb wrote:What is your stove/oven method? I looked on the sites linked to Hebert's and Posche's and didn't find the two products mentioned, but even if I can't get those, I still want to learn how you cooked the chops. The beans/ bacon looks great too.

Thanks. I don't have an exact method, I just like to get them nice and browned in the pan and then finish cooking them thru in the oven. I just use the feel treatment to know when they're done. Chow Chow is a common condiment (relish) in the South, most popular in Tennessee though found all over. From the looks of Poche's website, they dont ship everything they sell, it's a pretty big place for an independent stop. The Cajun seasoning from Hebert's is really pungent though isn't essential but it is there for sale on the site. I've tried many Cajun and Creole seasonings and it's hard to beat either or offering from the Spice House. It's def. one of the city's great cooking treasures.

buttercream wrote:Looks delicious!! Love the idea of the bacon with the green beans. Reminds me of my grandma's cooking where she would boil green beans with bacon and onions. Yum!

For the green beans, I crisp diced bacon in the pan, add chopped onion and then garlic and then the green beans and some Cajun spice. Cover with chicken broth and cook until liquid evaporates and bacon gets crispy again.

stevez wrote:Poche's got a nice mention in Saveur last month. How is their andouille?

Damn good! Only had a couple slices for test tasting purposes but using one of the packages later today. Will report report back on what I come up with. Bears.

I was hit with a mean gumbo craving this weekend but unable and too lazy to track down/mail order a decent andouille, so I took things in a bit of an untraditional direction and I think the final product came out pretty got dang good. I made a straight up dark roux, which like so many things in the kitchen has become much easier after a few attempts and a more or less traditional trinity with jalapeño subbed for half of the green bell. I made a stock from some misc frozen chicken/duck pieces and a couple smoked ham hocks, which were later diced and added to the gumbo along with some braised and diced duck. The whole mess was seasoned aggressively and served with white rice. The end product was deep and murky in the best kind of way.

AlekH wrote:I think the final product came out pretty got dang good. I made a straight up dark roux, which like so many things in the kitchen has become much easier after a few attempts and a more or less traditional trinity with jalapeño subbed for half of the green bell. I made a stock from some misc frozen chicken/duck pieces and a couple smoked ham hocks, which were later diced and added to the gumbo along with some braised and diced duck. The whole mess was seasoned aggressively and served with white rice. The end product was deep and murky in the best kind of way.

Looks like a killer bowl, I say you have the dark roux down based on the bowls you have posted here. Nicely done.

AlekH wrote:I was hit with a mean gumbo craving this weekend but unable and too lazy to track down/mail order a decent andouille, so I took things in a bit of an untraditional direction and I think the final product came out pretty got dang good. I made a straight up dark roux, which like so many things in the kitchen has become much easier after a few attempts and a more or less traditional trinity with jalapeño subbed for half of the green bell. I made a stock from some misc frozen chicken/duck pieces and a couple smoked ham hocks, which were later diced and added to the gumbo along with some braised and diced duck. The whole mess was seasoned aggressively and served with white rice. The end product was deep and murky in the best kind of way.

How did you make your roux - stovetop or oven? I always go low and slow on the stove and go super dark though want to give the oven method a shot.

Ok pardon the intrusion in this thread but, am I nuts or just stupid? I can't seem to find the button to add a new topic/thread anymore. Am I missing something?

peaceyall wrote:

AlekH wrote:I was hit with a mean gumbo craving this weekend but unable and too lazy to track down/mail order a decent andouille, so I took things in a bit of an untraditional direction and I think the final product came out pretty got dang good. I made a straight up dark roux, which like so many things in the kitchen has become much easier after a few attempts and a more or less traditional trinity with jalapeño subbed for half of the green bell. I made a stock from some misc frozen chicken/duck pieces and a couple smoked ham hocks, which were later diced and added to the gumbo along with some braised and diced duck. The whole mess was seasoned aggressively and served with white rice. The end product was deep and murky in the best kind of way.

How did you make your roux - stovetop or oven? I always go low and slow on the stove and go super dark though want to give the oven method a shot.

How about a mixture of both. Try going 'high and fast' on the stovetop until you get to a caramel color and then move to the oven to get that deep rich color without burning.

Fried Green Tomatoes, Cajun Dusted Shrimp, Bacon, Spicy Remoulade, Lettuce, Bread.

BLT or Po Boy? How about both.

That thing looks fierce

Da Beef wrote:I have over 10 creole/ New Orleans recipe books including some treasures from the early 80's that my parents collected on vacations down there before I was born...

Sad news in the food world last week as one of the pioneers of Cajun and Creole cuisine becoming a national thing passed away. RIP Paul Prudhomme. A few of those books I mentioned back in the OP were Paul Prudhomme authored and are still with me today. After a visit to K-Paul last year I really wanted something similar to the turkey meatball soup I had chowed on at his restaurant in New Orleans. The only way to taste something similar was to make it myself so I went to work on what basically turned into a meatball gumbo. One of the things Chef Paul always stressed was how anything goes as far as food down there so this is hardly out of the ordinary. From here on in I'll call it 'Ode to Chef Paul Gumbo with Cajun Meatballs'.


Cajun Meatballs

3 LBS ground beef*
1/2 cup oatmeal or toasted breadcrumbs
2 eggs
3 cloves garlic (minced)
1/2 onion (finely chopped)
3 TBPS Worcestershire
Cajun Seasoning to taste (3 TBSP+)

*They freeze well so might as well make extras. Turkey is cool too but I'll always prefer beef and or pork.

Mix everything together in a bowl and form into balls. I like to make mine about the size of a golf ball, maybe a little bit bigger. I just use a 1/2 cup measure to scoop out the meat and then pat it into a ball. Proceed to brown meatballs in some oil in the same pot you'll cook the gumbo in. Place them to the side when done.


The Changing of the Color

Gumbo/Stew

2 TBSP cooking oil
2 links of andouille sausage (diced)
1 bell pepper (chopped)
2 onions (chopped)
3 stalks celery (chopped)
4 carrots (diced) Optional
3 cloves garlic (minced)
1 cup dark Cajun Roux
7-8 Cups Beef Broth (can use chicken broth or water if need be)
2 Bay Leaves
Cajun seasoning to taste (2 TBSP+)
2 tsp of file powder
1/2 cup fresh sliced green onions, tops included

Directions: Carrots and Andouille cook first (saute in pot and set aside). Next up add your Holy Trinity (onions, peppers, celery) and saute until soft, proceed to add the carrots, andouille and the roux, then the seasoning and let cook five minutes. Next up empty the beef broth into the pot and throw the bay leaves in there too. Let it cook on medium low for a couple hours while adding the meatballs in halfway thru and you'll be good to go, add file powder when pot is turned off and serve with white rice and fresh chopped green onions on top.


Ode to Chef Paul Gumbo with Cajun Meatballs...


....Always better the next day.

Great job, Beef. That is a fitting tribute to Chef Paul. He certainly was a big influence on me, and I'm sure many others around here. R.I.P.

That looks great Da Beef! Local or imported andouille?

BR wrote:That looks great Da Beef! Local or imported andouille?

In this case I had just visited Da Bayou so I was working with the good stuff. My stash has since run out. Been looking at flights to Nola so hoping to get there soon and taking another trip into Acadiana.

The other day, a neighbor loaned me her ratchet set so I could work on the car, another one came to visit me, another one offered to help me with yard work, and another one brought me flowers. Today I am making a big batch of thank-you gumbo (okra and smoked beef sausage this time).

Beer in jambalaya?

I'm prepping the ingredients for chicken and ham jambalaya, and I am surprised that I never noticed before that the chicken jambalaya recipe in the River Road Recipes cookbook calls for 1 can of beer for 2 cups of rice (and this is in the main Poultry section of the book, not that How Men Cook section near the back ). I looked in Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen; his various recipes call for various (beef, pork, chicken, duck, seafood, depending on the meat) stocks rather than plain water, but no mention of beer or other alcohol. I looked online and quickly found half a dozen or more jambalaya recipes with beer.

Just wondering, has anyone else here tried this? It's a new one on me, and I'm a little nervous about it having too much of a beer aroma when it's done, but I'm going to go ahead and try it.

Katie — I cooked jambalaya this way for many years and it’s perfectly fine and does not have much of a beer taste in the final product (though you’ll smell it while it cooks off). I think I grew up with a variation of this recipe (have the same cookbook, but my mother annotated it). You want to use a lighter, less hoppy beer, though.

Thanks very much, Matt. You were right: there was a nice beer aroma while it was cooking but not a boozy flavor to the jambalaya. I used a light lager. I liked the resulting flavor. I think I'll be making my jambalaya with beer from now on.

I'm still not quite satisfied with my jambalaya overall, though. I think I make it for sentimental reasons---I remember my mother making it---but it doesn't seem to turn out the way I remember it. I've made dirty rice, which is new to me, a couple of times recently and liked the high ratio of meat to rice. After that, my jambalaya seemed like too much gloopy rice, even though I thought I used quite a bit of chicken and ham. Need to look at the recipe again. And I wonder if I'm using the right kind of rice. The River Road recipe just says "rice." I notice that Paul Prudhomme prefers converted rice, which I have never cooked with, but I'm reading up on it now.

Happy to help, Katie.

The jambalaya recipe I use most these days is from Donald Link’s Real Cajun. A decent approximation can be found here.

Donald Link’s recipe is outstanding. (His book Reak Cajun has a bunch of very good recipes, though they tend to take more time than many others )While I don’t use it, the advantage of converted rice is that there is no external starch. I just have never found a converted rice with the flavor I want. I always use less rice than the recipe calls for. Traditional jambalaya recipes use so much rice because rice is cheap. I also might recommend a higher liquid to rice ratio to you, Katie. You almost can’t use to much liquid and it keeps the rice from being ‘gloopy’.

Thanks to you both, Matt and Lou, for the advice and for the recipe link. I have all ingredients on hand, and you've motivated me to take another stab at (and a different approach to) jambalaya. As I read that recipe, by the way, my impression is that it's in the cajun rather than creole style (i.e., not "tomatoey," although there is are 2 tbsp of tomato paste involved), and that's my preference.

Looks like I'm going to have to find a copy of Link's Real Cajun.

Jambalaya, loosely based on a recipe in Emeril's "Real and Rustic"


Jambalaya, count me a Fan!

Katie wrote: Beer in jambalaya?

I'm prepping the ingredients for chicken and ham jambalaya, and I am surprised that I never noticed before that the chicken jambalaya recipe in the River Road Recipes cookbook calls for 1 can of beer for 2 cups of rice (and this is in the main Poultry section of the book, not that How Men Cook section near the back ). I looked in Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen; his various recipes call for various (beef, pork, chicken, duck, seafood, depending on the meat) stocks rather than plain water, but no mention of beer or other alcohol. I looked online and quickly found half a dozen or more jambalaya recipes with beer.
Just wondering, has anyone else here tried this? It's a new one on me, and I'm a little nervous about it having too much of a beer aroma when it's done, but I'm going to go ahead and try it.

Matt wrote: Katie — I cooked jambalaya this way for many years and it’s perfectly fine and does not have much of a beer taste in the final product (though you’ll smell it while it cooks off). I think I grew up with a variation of this recipe (have the same cookbook, but my mother annotated it). You want to use a lighter, less hoppy beer, though.

Yes, you need a 'sleazy' light lager to impress this recipe. Back when Paul Prudhomme was active, those beers were Dixie (Louisiana), and Pearl, Shiner (premium - not bock), and Lone Star (Texas - shhh ).
I believe those first three beers are not available in Illinois. But you-know-what; I bet one of those off-brand canned beers (e.g. Name Tag) you see in Trader Joe's would nicely substitute.