Review: Shrimp and Crab Gumbo, CL, Sept.

[kkapow]

i wasn't at all impressed with this recipe. i made it early this afternoon and just had a bowl. i won't be making it again.

for my taste, there was too much okra for the rest of the mixture. i couldn't find salt-free Cajun seasoning, so omitted the salt called for. otherwise, i followed the recipe exactly. it was still pretty spicy, and the shrimp and crab were good in it. if i were to make it again, i'd adjust the amount of the okra.

the flavors did have an okay mix, but i guess i was expecting more... i-don't-know-what. there just seemed to be something missing with this.

i guess i'm more used to jambalayas, so this was just not my thing.

at least i can take it to work, and my coworkers will devour it.
ah well, live and learn! it looked good in the magazine!

any other reviews for this?

karen

[Little Bit]

Gumbo's one of 'those' recipes, where everyone has a favorite, nobody agrees on the 'best' kind, lots of people think there's 'only one way to make it' and opinions are generally never mild.

My kneejerk reaction to reading this recipe (that I found on the CL site, amazingly enough) is that there's not enough seafood. Too much bell pepper, no parsley or any tomatoes, no lemon, and it isn't cooked even remotely long enough. All cardinal sins, where gumbo is concerned in THIS house. :) No file either, but lots of people don't put ANY file in their gumbo at all.

Dad used to joke that the (fabulous) gumbo in the cafeteria at Tulane had been rumored to have been simmering for decades, they just kept adding to it, whenever it ran low, but we suspect that's just a rumor. ;)


Shrimp and Crab Gumbo
From Cooking Light

Traditionally, gumbo begins with a roux of butter and flour. Toasting the flour in a dry pan on the stove provides a flavorful, low-fat substitute for a roux in this Creole specialty.

1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3 bacon slices, diced
2 cups finely chopped onion
1 1/2 cups finely chopped green bell pepper (about 1 large)
4 celery stalks, thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup water
2 (14-ounce) cans fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth, divided
2 teaspoons salt-free Cajun seasoning
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 (16-ounce) bag frozen cut okra, thawed
1 pound peeled and deveined medium shrimp
2 (6-ounce) cans lump crabmeat (such as Chicken of the Sea), drained
3 cups hot cooked long-grain white rice
Hot pepper sauce (optional)

Place flour in a small skillet; cook 5 minutes over medium heat or until flour is brown, stirring constantly. Place in a small bowl; cool.

Cook bacon in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat 3 minutes. Add onion, bell pepper, celery, and garlic; sauté 10 minutes or until vegetables are tender and lightly browned. Add water, and cook 1 minute, stirring constantly.

Combine toasted flour and 1 can of chicken broth in a medium bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Gradually pour broth mixture into pan. Stir in remaining can of chicken broth, Cajun seasoning, 1/2 teaspoon salt, crushed red pepper, and cut okra; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes.

Add shrimp; cook 3 minutes or until shrimp are done. Gently stir in crabmeat. Remove from heat; serve gumbo over rice. Serve with hot pepper sauce, if desired.


Yield: 6 servings (serving size: 1/2 cup rice and 1 1/4 cups gumbo)

NUTRITION PER SERVING
CALORIES 464 (28% from fat); FAT 9g (sat 2.9g, mono 3.4g, poly 1.7g); PROTEIN 33.8g; CARB 60.2g; FIBER 5.4g; CHOL 160mg; IRON 5.5mg; SODIUM 955mg; CALC 192mg;

Lorrie Hulston Corvin
Cooking Light, SEPTEMBER 2004

[badunnin]

Originally posted by Little Bit
Gumbo's one of 'those' recipes, where everyone has a favorite, nobody agrees on the 'best' kind, lots of people think there's 'only one way to make it' and opinions are generally never mild.

My kneejerk reaction to reading this recipe (that I found on the CL site, amazingly enough) is that there's not enough seafood. Too much bell pepper, no parsley or any tomatoes, no lemon, and it isn't cooked even remotely long enough. All cardinal sins, where gumbo is concerned in THIS house. :) No file either, but lots of people don't put ANY file in their gumbo at all.



I completely agree. My gumbo has no tomatoes, a bit of bell pepper, no lemon, and no file. Definitely less okra than this recipe has. From what I've seen, "authentic" recipes vary from county to county all along the gulf. :)

[Little Bit]

Very true!

Lots of people would say that it 'ought' to have sausage, or oysters, or something else entirely. :)

As for me, I also like a bit of ham stock and ham in my gumbo.

I've read online somewhere, that some people think that having okra AND file in the same gumbo is just heretical, but that's the way we've always had it.

In more modern years, we make ours mostly by making a jazzed up version of okra and tomatoes, with more vegetables, more broth, and loads of seafood.

[kkapow]

glad to see that i'm not the only one who thought this recipe lacked something.

although i know gumbo has to have okra in it, this was just way too much!

seems to me if you added tomatoes and sausage, you'd have more of a jambalaya, wouldn't you?

thanks for the added input; one question... what is file?

karen

[dlaboriel]

Our favorite gumbo is one by Paul Prudhomme that I discovered in one of his books several years ago. It does not have okra as my hubby hates okra so this works fine for him. It is delicious but very spicey. For me that's fine, for him I had to cut down on the cayenne pepper.

[BetsyS]

Anytime I make any dish with okra, dh complains that it has "too much okra." It's become a running joke. I love okra. There is no such thing as too much. LOL

[Jazzmatazz49]

After 5 minutes of browning, I have to wonder if the roux is dark enough. I know there's no oil in it, but still...

A gumbo that's not dark and thick isn't gumbo, but I guess we do a lot of sacrificing to "Cook Light". Well, some of us do. But not when making gumbo!

[Little Bit]

As for filé, here's a description from FoodSubs.com, that I'm not entirely sure I agree with, but it's a start.:

http://www.foodsubs.com/HerbsAmerican.html

filé powder = filé = gumbo file = gumbo filé = ground sassafras leaves = sassafras leaves = file powder = file = fil powder = fil Pronunciation: FEE-lay or fih-LAY Notes: This powder is made from the same leaves that used to give root beer its distinctive flavor, back in the days before artificial flavorings. Southerners add filé to their gumbos to thicken and flavor them. The powder gets stringy when it's heated, so add it only after you've removed the gumbo from the heat source. Filé also doesn't reheat well, so add it only to the gumbo that you're planning to eat right away. Substitutes: okra (Cooking this vegetable in your gumbo is another traditional way to thicken it.) OR cornstarch (This is another thickener, but it lacks filé's distinctive root beer-like flavor.)

[Little Bit]

Karen,

Gumbos and jambalaya may seem similar, but they're totally different dishes, at least in my experience.

I'm no expert, but IMHO, gumbo is a soup, served with rice, while jambalaya is more closely related to paella, with lots more rice than is typcially seen in gumbo. Jambalayas I've seen/tasted also always feature sausage, which is optional in gumbo.

Here's a link to a site with tons of recipes, so maybe you can see some of the other differences.

http://www.gumbopages.com/recipe-page.html

[BethR]

I made this a few nights ago, and we thought it was just okay. Even with Penzey's Very Hot Cajun Seasoning and Pakistani crushed red pepper (twice as hot as regular crushed red pepper from California) we thought it lacked flavor and bite. I wondered if the "roux" was browned enough -- at 6.5 minutes it was a very light brown, but I didn't want to risk burning it and I was impatient to move dinner prep along so I stopped there. Perhaps a darker roux would have made a significant difference in flavor? DH isn't a huge fan of okra so I didn't add quite at much as called for -- I think reducing it even more might have helped. I served this over Garlicky Brown Rice from CL complete -- this helped a little in the flavor department but didn't bump it up to "keeper" status for us.

Beth :)

[Anne]

We aren't big okra fans so we usually substitute zuchinni or eggplant (sacrilige I'm sure). I do cook the roux a lot longer than called for in this recipe.

[AzAnne]

I have this on the menu this week, but now based on these reviews I'm thinking I should use the shrimp for something else.

Neither DH or my self like okra so I as just gonna leave it out :o

Decisions, decisions :confused:

[doggerham]

I made this last night, without having checked for reviews. :)

I thought it was just OK, although DH really liked it. I ended up adding a bunch of tabasco to my serving, which helped. To me, it was kind of a pale facsimile of the real thing.

It did give me the opportunity to try a house brand of frozen shrimp that wasn't bad at all. I also discovered Star-Kist (?) brand crab in a foil packet. I think it came in 2 different types, and it wasn't half bad -- very acceptable for certain uses IMHO.

I used fresh, rather than frozen okra (a farmers market buy that morning), and had about 10-12 oz instead of a pound, and that seemed to be about right.

The browning the flour technique was also a challenge. I think I cooked mine closer to 10 minutes, but like another person mentioned, I was afraid I was going to burn it, so it never really got much past the color of whole wheat flour.

Anyhow, not a waste of ingredients, it came together quickly, and was relatively tasty,(which is good, because I'm eating it for lunch this week) but overall there are better versions out there. Its probably worth a trip to Treebeards in Houston when I get the need for gumbo, jambalaya or etouffe, so I can just have a good serving without stressing over the butter in the roux!

[Wendy w]

I missed this thread when it 1st came out. Being a native left coaster, I am hardly an authority on good gumbo, but I really liked the one in the Complete CL. I can't handle okra so I used file powder instead. I had a Louisiana raised cooking teacher who said to use either file or okra never both. I am surprised by how many recipes that call for both.