Should gumbo include okra?

[AmyH]

Yum, I love okra!! I agree that gumbo just isn't the same without okra! And okra breaded and fried with a ton of grease, yummy!!! Ya'll are making me incredibly hungry for some good southern food! Half my family is from Texas, and I definitely got the tastebuds for southern food. Don't leave that okra out of your gumbo Sherrie, it just wouldn't be the same.

Amy

[madjack]

PPD...you comeon down and we WILL fill ya up...I might even throw a tad (technical term) of okra in the gumbo Friday just to satisfy the purists
madjack

[asianflava]

I think we should be very proud of our heritage.
Especially our "Southern" heritage!

Okra all the way in gumbo!!!

You know what is kinda funny. Having lived in the South pretty much my whole life: WV, VA, FL NC it took me a couple years to remember that TX is in the South. I kinda always considered it West. I'm glad though because I can get grits without people thinking that I'm weird.

The biggest difference is Iced Tea, Sweet or Unsweet. In NC if you ordered "Tea" it was going to be sweet, in FL it would most likely be sweet but not always. Here, I usually have to ask if they have sweet tea. If they don't have it, they always point out that there is sugar on the table. I have a canned response to that, "It's just not the same."

[madjack]

Rocky, you have recognized a fundamental truth...Southern Sweet Tea is actually a food group...although, some lesser informed yankees, consider it a confection
madjack

[Miriam C.]

NYC!!! How ya gonna git it slimmy.
I add extra to mine. Just veggie soup without it. Ya'll send me some from LA.

[SmokeyBob]

OK, all this talk about Okra in Gumbo. Would someone please post their Gumbo recipe.

Jack, hint hint

[Steve Frederick]

why ruin anything by using "snot in a pod"?

Yeah!! What he said!!
Maybe us "Yankees" can't cook it right!

[bledsoe3]

Come on Jack, give it up. My dad's friend who made gumbo for us moved back to LA and I haven't had any in years.

[Laredo]

Ain't madjack.
Cain't eat shrimp (iodine allergy).
Having said that some of y'all tell me if this works for you:

2 sticks butter
1 1/2 cups flour

1 pound okra, stemmed and cut in 1/2'' slices
1 1/2 pounds small tomatoes, stemmed and quartered
4 chicken leg quarters -- boiled, skinned, deboned, and shredded
2 pounds beef polska kielbasa, sliced in 1/2'' pieces
2 large sweet onions peeled and finely diced
2 1/2 pounds red beans, washed, picked over and soaked overnight
1 cup rice
6 cloves peeled garlic, smashed
1 1/2 cups finely diced bell pepper
3/4 cup finely diced celery
3 quarts unsalted chicken broth
1 tablespoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons coarse black pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon red chile powder

Melt butter. Pour off half into separate pan and saute garlic, half the onion, bell pepper, and rice until rice barely starts to look toasted. Set aside keeping warm. Meanwhile, in remaining butter make a roux with 1/2 to 3/4 cup flour and a pinch of salt. When the roux is as dark as a roasted peanut add the black pepper, cayenne, red chile, and paprika. Cook 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes, okra, drained soaked beans, 2 quarts and 1 pint chicken broth and sauteed vegetables. Bring just to a boil then reduce heat to barest simmer and cook 2-3 hours or until beans are done (you may need to add liquid from time to time as the rice will soak some up; use the remaining chicken broth for this. About 30 minutes before serving put the remaining onions and the sausage in a skillet and cook until sausage is crispy on edges and onions are clear. Stir in shredded chicken and heat through. Pour this mixture into the gumbo, add 3/4 teaspoon file powder and bring back to a simmer.

ops

Serve hot with cornbread and sweet tea.

Note: to make real Southern Sweet Tea you must use real sugar. You can do this in one of two ways. I like method 1: Boil a quart of water vigorously; once it boils stir in 1 1/2 cups of sugar and simmer until all sugar is dissolved. Pour this liquid into the bottom of a 2-gallon pitcher. In a 2nd quart of boiling water steep your choice of five family-size teabags or 3/4 cup loose tea for 10 minutes. Pour this liquid into the pitcher; stir well; fill pitcher to top with cold water. Serve over ice.

Method 2: boil 3 pints of water and steep tea as above. Strain out tea and stir in 1 cup sugar until all dissolved. Strain. Pour into pitcher and continue as above.

Method 1 tea can be saved in the fridge for 3 to 4 days without going cloudy.

Method 2 tea can be infused with mint.

You choose. The key is to melt the sugar before the tea cools.

[madjack]

...a specific recipe would be tough since I have never used one....as in all Cajun cooking, the dish starts with these instructions...."first ya gotta make a roux"....after that you add the kitchen sink, season to taste and your done.....
madjack

[Juneaudave]

Ok...ok...ok...I've tried and tried to resist responding to this post, but I have some observations...

As a true northerner, gumbo gives me the shivers. Okra is the least of a fella's worries. There is no telling what Madjack might slip into a pot...crawdads, catfish, greens he collected from the edge of some farmers ditch, spices of unknown origin, gator tail....and he is likely to walk up to you, generously offer you a bowl with the traditional southern hospitality (that you can't decline), and enthusiastically ask you "What do you think????"

Yankees will never understand gumbo..and will most likely never, ever, be able to get the ingredients for a gumbo unless they have a cousin in Mississippi. My observation is that unless you can make gumbo with brown gravy, this is a useless endeavor for a Yankee.

A fellow member (who shall be un-named) is of no help...last time we talked about gumbo, he offered some sort of pacific northwest alternative recipe that included fish eggs and salmon heads, cooked in a DO. While offered in good spirit, I gotta ask, has any of the DO chefs actually made this recipe????...eeeeeeeeeehhhh

[madjack]

Dave, you have a rare and accurate insight into the truth of the matter....especially for a yankee
madjack

p.s....Laredo....ain't no beans or chile powder in Gumbo...that is reserved for two differnt dishes....red beans and rice being one and chile being the other...MJ

[stbuch]

Please don't mention crawdads when I'm so far from Vernon Parish (my former home) and can't get a decent plate of mudbugs anywhere around here!

Sherrie

[Laredo]

Madjack,
I told them I wasn't you.
The gumbo I have had -- admittedly, it was Shreveport, and it was 1978 -- was homemade and had both beans and powdered red pepper in it. It may not have been chile powder, but it didn't taste like comino (which I loathe).
The beans were big things, nearly the size of my thumbs, and had split open and mushed out into the dish in general.
It also had crawfish and shrimp in it and it is how I discovered I can't eat either of those things.
It was the base Crawfish and Watermelon festival.

Anaphylactic shock was something that, prior to that weekend, I associated with bad reactions to wasp and bee stings. I know better now. I spent a full week in the base hospital afterward.

[madjack]

'Redo, it was probably ground cayenne...widely used for heat and flavor...never heard of putting bean in but since gumbo invloves the kitchen sink, who knows....and just for the record, a Cajun would probably consider someone from Shreveport a yankee...sorry to hear about the shell fish allergy...what a bummer...
madjack