the pragmatic chef™

There ain't no shrimp in this grilled gumbo!

But, there's almost everything else!

My assignment for 'interpreted dish' at the current Pragmatic Chef contest is Scott's own "Gumbo with chicken, sausage, and shrimp". Wait! I'm supposed to interpret the master? Shudder the thought!

Oh well, might as well give it a try. Scott's such a great guy that he probably won't make too much fun of me. Let's get started shall we?

I made one significant substitution to the recipe at The Pragmatic Chef (TPC). I can't eat shrimp so instead I'll use one pound of cooked crawfish (Did you know that we have fresh wild crawfish as a staple fisheries crop in the Northwest? Well, now you do.), and a half-pound of fresh cooked Dungeness Crab (our indigenous crab species in the Northwest)...

Oh yeah, don't forget the chicken and okra (You gotta have okra in gumbo! And Scott's right, once it cooks up in the gumbo, it's no longer 'slick'.)

The key addition that I made to the TPC recipe is cilantro. I'll explain as I go...

In terms of cooking style, because I'm a grill nut - I chose to make the gumbo on the grill. I'll explain this as well. I started the roux in a large cook pot on the side burner. I used corn oil. Feels traditional.

Scott mentioned in his recipe that the roux will get very hot so that you have to be very careful in adding the initial ingredients. I thought I'd help the process along a little bit and mitigate the roux entry by heating up the initial ingredients on the grill a little. I cut the andouille sausage into 1/4 rounds - then placed those in my cooking basket - which grips the contents between two grates. So while stirring the roux, I'm browning the sausage - once I got the sausage nicely browned I just put the basket up on the upper grill level to stay warm.

I also wrapped all of the diced vegetables in aluminum foil and just dusted them with corn oil - no spices or anything. I wrapped them tightly and put them on the grill - turning as necessary (I used minced garlic from a jar, so you garlic watchers won't see it here - there's a good amount in the final product). I went to 'just past overdone popcorn smell' for the roux - I thought it well golden - and the pot was so hot I couldn't touch the handles without potholders - this stuff is HOT!

The eye under the pot gets turned off. The sausages go in right out of the basket - that way I get to stand at arms length as they sizzle in. Then the veggies - they aren't cooked, just a bit steamed in the foil - because we've preheated them, there's no water inside, so they go into the roux without a fuss. They smell great!

Eye back on and up to medium again. We stir all that up a bit and get the roux thouroughly engaged with these ingredients. After getting the celery to about half crunchy, I added the chicken stock and the beer. Added the okra at this point as well. Oh, and for the beer, I used a local micro brew - Bullfrog Ale from Issaquah brewery. This is a nice dry ale, and unhomogenized because it is local. I also used a 24 ounce bottle. I guess that might be substituting some beer for water :) After a long simmer and a few taste tests, I added one cup of water.

I added the suggested seasonings and the chicken after everything was pretty tender. I also added a little cilantro at this point as well. The roux, beer, okra, and thyme make a great and complimentary case for the base flavor of this dish. Used sparingly, the cilantro adds a little bit of sweet counterpoint to the base flavor. Don't overdo it. A little cilantro will do just fine with the strong base flavors.

Within five minutes or so of being done, I added the crab and the crawfish (since they were already cooked), having cleaned the crawfish tails (and claws where I could) and keeping them with the crab chilled to this point. I turned up the heat just slightly and stirred in the seafood for about five minutes.

I made a cake of long grain (with wild) rice by firmly pressing it into a one cup measuring cup and placed it in the middle of a deep plate, ladled on the gumbo and garnished with green onion and a bit more cilantro.

I enjoyed making and eating this gumbo very much. Though I have read lots of recipes that combine chicken and seafood, this was the first one I've tried - and the combination is quite good. I used a few Northwest ingredients and they worked out very well - the crab adds a nice richness, the crawfish some traditional 'boil' flavoring, and the local ale a nice compliment to the roux. I'm amazed at how very pungent the roux is, given that its ingredients are only oil and flour.

A note on the photos: These were all shot with an on-camera flash with an attached diffuser set at about a thirty degree andle - and utilizing a remote flash (though an umbrella) about 8 feet to the left (or behind the subject) as well. [TPC note: Mac is a wonderful photographer. I won't link directly to the home page of the political blog that he contributes too, because I just don't do that here, but I will link to the photography category, where you can check out more of his work.]