Eat Arkansas

It's all about the roux. I use butter/flour, but it appears that the traditional one is oil/flour. Either way, I can't bear to take it beyond peanut butter color. When I'm making it, I don't answer the phone or door, and stay right on top of the skillet. Amazing how quickly a roux will go south on you if you look away at anything.

I also always have a stash of homemade chicken stock in the freezer. I occasionally use a smokey stock made from either smoked turkey or chicken. As God is my witness, I'll never buy canned stock again! (Assuming that the power doesn't go out and ruin everything in the freezer.)

Our local food coop has been out of sassafras leaves for several months or else I would gladly seen you some file. Maybe we get out to the farm and past the hordes of rattlesnakes and find some.

I make my roux the way
my cajun women friends
taught me, oil & flour or
lard/flour. I go by color &
smell, has to be a dark
chocolate color and like a
thick paste, plenty of itso it
won't be thin or soupy.
I get my fresh filet sent up
from south La.

Looks too pretty to eat. I also add a mess of okra to mine. Hubby prefers traditional presentation, but I've started to poor my batch into a casserole dish, layer buttered french bread on top, cover & bake for ~30 min. Then uncover & brown the bread for ~15 min. The bread soaks up the juices & it's heaven on earth.

Pollen is right. Don't get distracted while you're stirring roux. I heard a woman on a cooking show say that if one of her children bothered her while she was making roux, she had to spank the child twice. Once for whatever he'd done, and another for making her mess up the roux.

Spare the rod, spoil the roux?

If you need gumbo file, Floyd's Meat and Seafood has it. Apparently it's rather hard to find around here.

Hogg's did have it, and I once found it in the spice aisle at Kroger at Rodney Parham and Markham, but I couldn't attest to it being there now.

I usually go for a chicken base -- and sear the chicken before I throw it in to break down into stock. I use that pan with a bit of vegetable oil against a same amount of flour for the roux.

Secret to getting your roux done quick (in about 10 minutes) without burning? Egg whisk. I use a non-stick pan and start whisking over medium high heat from the get-go. I like to get about milk chocolate dark before pulling it off the heat and dumping it directly onto some of the veggies. And I'm definately all about file -- since my husband won't accept okra gumbo. No matter how well it's done, he claims it's slimy.

For first-timers, that file goes in dead last -- I usually add it to to the bowl I'm about to eat from. It'll make ropes if you put it in the pot with the rest of the gumbo and let it stew.

Is her honor not pissed that you've messed up "every dish in the house"--as Momma used to say?

Shoot me, but I hate gumbo. Always have and likely always will. Tastes like dirt, to me. Perhaps if I get knocked up and get Pica...