Authentic Cajun Gumbo Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What are the 2 rules of gumbo? ›

Thou Shalt Always Use a Bowl. If you use a plate, it is not gumbo it is rice and gravy! Thou Shalt Only Use a Wooden Spoon. There is only one kind of spoon that can enter a gumbo pot and that is a wooden one.

Creole gumbos most often include tomatoes, shellfish and dark roux and often okra and filé powder, an herb made from ground leaves of sassafras trees. Cajun gumbo doesn't have tomatoes and usually also contains chicken. It's not uncommon for both Creole and Cajun gumbo to include meats such as ham or sausage as well.

Great gumbo starts with roux, a flavorful thickening agent made from equal parts fat and flour. Once the roux is a deep golden color, add diced veggies and sausage to the mix. Then, incorporate beef bouillon, hot sauce, tomatoes, and seasonings to intensify the flavor.

Turns out, your preference for tomatoes in gumbo comes down to whether you learned your skills from a Cajun cook or a Creole cook. (Learn about the difference here.) Cajun gumbo does not include tomatoes in the base, but Creole gumbo (typically shellfish or seafood gumbo) does call for tomatoes.

I - Thou Shalt Never Use Tomatoes If we've learned anything from the Disney folks, it's this. Any cooyon with half a brain knows "Making Gumbo 101" contains this golden rule -- it's roux-based and not tomato-based! Tomatoes are for things like spaghetti sauce.

Gumbo is a Cajun and creole specialty throughout the state of Louisiana. It's a thick, stew-like dish with several ingredients, such as the trinity (onions, celery, and bell peppers), okra, and meat.

Creole cooks in Louisiana usually prepare some variation of three basic recipes: a ''Creole gumbo'' that includes sausages, beef, veal, ham, chicken, whole crabs or shrimp and is thickened with roux and file powder; a simpler ''okra gumbo'' thickened with okra and including a variety of shellfish; and a ''gumbo aux ...

Creole gumbo: A true New Orleans Creole gumbo starts with a lighter roux—meaning a shorter-cooked roux with a less intensely toasty flavor—ham or chaurice (spicy fresh-pork sausage), okra, and tomatoes, all simmered in a flavorful stock. The protein in Creole gumbo is often seafood, such as shrimp, oysters, and crab.

Making gumbo shouldn't be scary, but there are some tricks to getting that classic taste that defines it. It should be thicker than a soup. That's where thickeners like roux, okra, and filé powder come in. They also add flavor, but you don't need all three.

Make your own stock.

While using a store bought stock is better than using water only, I recommend making your own. Though Cajuns almost never refer to it as such, gumbo is a soup. The stock provides the bulk of the gumbo; therefore, a good stock is essential.

What kind of rice is best for gumbo? ›

For purposes of this discussion, we will limit our focus to plain old polished white rice. Even then, it comes in different sizes — short, long and medium grain. I prefer medium grain rice in a gumbo, because the grains puff up, the perfect medium for a gumbo. The thick gumbo juice sticks to the grains just right.

Now, I prefer to grind up my own mix of seasoning (I use Emeril's ESSENCE recipe sometimes) because it keeps the flavour fresher, and I can ease up on the salt in favour of more pepper. Above all else, never add carrots (any recipe that tells you to do so is not an authentic New Orleans gumbo, even if it's delicious).

Consider the word “gumbo” which comes from the West African word “ki ngombo” for “o*kra”. West Africans used okra as a thickener in their version of the dish. The original West African gumbo has been described as stew-like, thickened with okra, and containing fish and shellfish.

Love it or hate it, there's no denying that okra can get slimy. The so-called slime is mucilage, which comes from sugar residue and is great for, say, thickening gumbo, but not great when you're biting into a piece of sautéed okra and averse to that viscous texture.

A roux is a sauce built on a simple ratio of 1 part butter to 1 part flour. You start by melting butter, then add in flour, and cook the mixture over low heat until it's thick and lump-free.

The "holy trinity" in Cajun cuisine and Louisiana Creole cuisine is the base for several dishes in the regional cuisines of Louisiana and consists of onions, bell peppers and celery. The preparation of Cajun/Creole dishes such as crawfish étouffée, gumbo, and jambalaya all start from this base.