Hopefully Riverrat will see your post! When we were in LA we were hosted royally by Karen and her DH at their Lake Charles home. Karen served us the most delicous Gumbo I've ever had...and by candlelight no less!

It was amazing!

Hi Jane. I just love New Orleans. I lived there for ten years and my DW is from there. I'll post my gumbo recipe but let me encourage you to check out NOLA.com and go to the recipe section. You will find many many authentic gumbo recipes there. Fun to try all kinds. I'm sure others here will have theirs for you too. Here is mine.

Chicken, Shrimp and Sausage Gumbo

Use a 4-5qt. heavy-bottomed pan or cast iron Dutch oven

Use ¼ cup each of oil and flour. Put the oil into the pot over medium-low heat. Stir flour into oil with a wooden spoon. Stir frequently until roux reaches a light brown peanut butter color.

1 cup onion, cut into medium dice.

1 red or green bell pepper cut into medium dice.

2 stalks of celery, cut into medium dice.

Add above seasoning [vegetables] to the roux; stir well until coated with roux and cook for five minutes.

3 cloves of garlic diced fine or pressed.

1 large or 3 small bay leaves.

1 qt. chicken broth/stock

½# smoked sausage, cut into ½" slices, then cut in half.

Add above and simmer for 45 minutes. Taste broth and add salt and pepper to taste. Add ½ tsp of cayenne pepper. If you like things quite spicy double the cayenne.

1# of chicken breast cut into ¾" cubes

Add the chicken to the gumbo and cook for 10 minutes, raising heat to medium. When you add the chicken make sure the level of the liquid covers all well. Add water if needed.

1# of small peeled and deveined shrimp [Cut shrimp in half if you can only get medium shrimp].

Add shrimp and cook for an additional five minutes.

Turn heat off. If you can find it, add 1Tbs of gumbo file. Add several dashes of hot sauce. Taste broth and adjust salt, pepper and hot sauce. Serve in a deep bowl over rice.

Notes:

If you can get fresh crabs, clean them, cut into halves and add when you add the chicken. Add an additional five minutes to that cooking time, making it 15 minutes. Alternately you may also add a ½# cleaned crab meat at the finish. It only needs a moment to heat through, so just add before correcting seasonings.

If you like okra, you may add a ½# fresh okra cut into ¼" slices when you add the sausage, or add 1 small pkg of frozen okra [thawed] when you add the chicken.

Oh sounds good. Don't skip the okra--it makes it healthy! :)

Hi Jane! I live where most consider this to be "gumbo country". I've lived here all my life and make gumbo the only way I know how...without a recipe. Over the years I've had numerous request for my recipe and I could only say "it's the way I've always cokked it". So one day I decided to write it down and type it out. Here goes.

LOUISIANA GUMBO

½ cup of oil
1 cup flour
4 quarts of water
2 large onions, finely chopped
Garlic, chopped
1 cup green onions, chopped
¼ cup parsley, chopped
1/8 bell pepper, chopped
1/8 celery, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Chicken, browned
Pork sausage, browned
½ teaspoon file

Hot fluffy rice

In a large gumbo pot, make a roux with oil and flour. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until roux is a dark caramel color. Remove from fire and add remaining ingredients, except ½ cup green onions file and rice. I always add the browning juices from the chicken and sausage during this time. Boil for about 2-3 hours, or so until the meat is tender and the gumbo has thickened. In the last 15 minutes of boiling add reserved green onions. Remove from fire and add file (adding file is optional, too much makes gumbo slimy). Serve over hot rice in gumbo bowls. Serves 5-6

Shrimp Gumbo is made the same way except that shrimp are not added until the last 20 minutes of cooking time, after the gumbo has preboiled for 45 minutes.

For Seafood Gumbo, follow same procedure as Shrimp Gumbo but add crab meat also. In the last 15 minutes of cooking, add oysters.

Chase, I will never forget that evening of gumbo in the dark! Louisiana in May, without electricity, makes for a bad hair day and a hot night. You and Clive where so gracious!
Jessica, thanks for the heads up ;-)

NP Karen, glad to have popped in on you

My only contribution to Gumbo, being a non-Southerner but lover of all cuisines, is to add smoked paprika. MMMMMmmmmmm!!!

Gumbo varies with every cook, but most gumbos have either okra or file (but not both), and are based on a roux.

I grew up in south Louisiana, grandma (Maman) was Cajun, I lived in N.O. four years--if you really, really want to cook like native Louisianans, ignore Emeril, ignore Justin Wilson, ignore Paul Prudhomme and get a copy of the book at the link. Really. That's the book that taught me to cook. Great stuff. I have several hundred cookbooks--this one is on my desert island list. It + Julia Child + Marcella Hazan. That would cover pretty much anything I would ever want to cook.

Yo Arley where ya been. Think of you every time I take out the pressure cooker. Oh BTW ...I'm 3/4ths of the way through a 'bucket list' item - doing Wagner's Ring Cycle at LA Opera! What a ride! (no pun intended)

Marcella Hazan...doffing my hat. Agreed!

Thanks so much everyone.
Chase - did you love New Orleans? Parts of it reminded me of Old Quebec.
Coconut - wow you are a wealth of information, thank you. I looked quickly at the NOLA website and will go back for a longer read.
Karen - thanks for your recipe - I am so excited to make gumbo, now that I know what it should taste like. I am surprised at the different amount of file called for in the recipes I've seen. 1 Tbsp to 1 quart of liquid, 1 tsp to 1 gallon of liquid and yours at 1/2 tsp to a gallon. I guess I will start small - you can always add more, but you can never add less.
Oh and I know what you mean about the bad hair days. My colleagues were shocked to see my pin straight bob turn into a "fro!"
J

Here's my gumbo recipe, which I wrote down quite some time ago. It's based on what I had in Houston and what Cajun friend of mine there made:

Seafood Gumbo

Ingredients

1-1/2 pounds okra, sliced into 1/4" thick pieces (fresh or frozen)
2 tbsp canola oil
2 cups chopped celery
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 green bell pepper, finely chopped
4-5 large cloves of garlic, minced
2 tbsp grapeseed oil (or canola)
8 cups water
4 tsp vegetable soup base
2 tbsp clam or crab soup base, or to taste
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp canola oil
1/2 cup flour
3-4 bay leaves
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil (or 1 tbsp dried basil)
1-1/2 tsp chopped fresh thyme (or 1 tsp dried thyme)
4 tsp chopped fresh oregano (or 2 tsp dried oregano)
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley (do not substitute dried for this one)
4-6 Thai chili peppers, seeds removed, finely chopped
1 tbsp filé powder
1 10 oz. can chopped tomatoes, drained
1-1/2 pounds King Crab legs (or 1 pound lump crab meat)
1 pound shrimp, shelled and de-veined
1/2 pound bay scallops or clam or oyster meat
1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
4 cups cooked rice

Directions

Sauté the okra in a small amount of oil in an iron skillet for 8 minutes on high heat and then about 7 minutes more on medium heat, or until the stringiness is gone. Set aside.
Note: Do not substitute olive oil in this recipe.

Sauté the celery, onions, bell pepper, and garlic in 2 tbsp oil until the onions are translucent. I usually start the celery first for a few minutes, and then I add the onions and bell pepper and sauté those for a couple of minutes and add the garlic last. This way the garlic will not burn and not turn bitter. I sauté with the garlic only about 2 minutes. You can then store these on top of the okra.

In a large saucepan or stockpot, make a roux with the 1 tbsp butter, 2 tbsp canola oil, and 1/3 cup flour. Cook the roux until it is a deep reddish brownthis will be just a few minutes past the "peanut butter" color stage. Add more oil, if needed. The roux should have the consistency of yogurt and be fairly easy to stir at this point so that you do not burn it. Add the tomatoes and cook until all liquid has been absorbed and the mixture is thickened into a paste. Add the filé, basil, oregano, and thyme and cook about 5 minutes more. It will be a very thick paste at this point, similar to a choux or puff paste. Add the water slowly, stirring constantly, and then add the bay leaves and vegetable soup base. Stir until the soup base has dissolved, and then add the sautéed vegetables, including the okra, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer covered for about 30 minutes. This is a good time to start making the rice.

Just before you are ready to serve, add the crab, shrimp, parsley, and scallops, and cook for 5 minutes more, or until the scallops are done. Check the seasoning, and add a dash of cayenne, Tabasco sauce, Chinese Chili Paste if it is not hot enough. It should be slightly salty, as the rice will require a bit of salt, but be careful not to overdo the saltthis will ruin the flavor. You can always add a tiny bit of salt at the table. If you are using pre-cooked shrimp, add them only at the time of serving, and store leftover shrimp separately. Serve in large, deep soup bowls over rice. You may want to offer Tabasco or chili paste for those who want more pepper flavor, but I dont find this necessary. If you use Thai chili peppers, it will be hot enough. If you use milder peppers, you may have to increase the quantity or you can leave the seeds in.

Yield: 4 quarts, or 8 large (2 cup) servings, not including rice

Lars

most gumbos have either okra or file (but not both)

Certainly not the first time I've heard that, but my question is, "Why not both?" I always add okra - I love it - and then use file at the end to thicken it a bit more if needed. Is there any reason beyond for the sake of tradition not to use both?

I can't post a recipe, as I haven't written mine out yet. BUT...the main thing about gumbo is not to rush the roux!!

Making a roux is not a matter of dumping some flour in fat and stirring it for a while. It is almost an art form. What seems odd to me is that most recipes calling for roux simply say, "make a roux" out of this amount of flour and that amount of fat...with the assumption I suppose, that the cook knows all about making a roux.

The half hour or 45 minutes (depending on my level of culinary devotion) it takes to make a rich, chocolate roux transforms a pot of homey stewed chicken, sausage, okra and/or seafood into something approaching an oral orgasm, if you'll allow me a bit of literary license.

Personally, if I'm going to spend half an hour or so stirring, I will go for the added richness and flavor of using bacon fat for my roux and da devil take de hindmost! I found a link that describes the Art of Roux fairly well:

Thank you for posting that about roux, rachelellen. I completely agree. Dh calls my roux motor oil ....but it is delicious and dark brown.

I agree, rachelellen, that a handmade roux is a work of art. Sometimes, though, I'm in a hurry and will (gasp) use a microwave to make it:

Put about 1 cup of oil and 1 cup of flour in an 8 cup pyrex measure. Nuke on high for 3 minutes, stir, repeat; as it begins to brown, decrease the nuke time to about a minute, then down to 30 seconds to the degree of browning you want; throw in your chopped up onions, etc. to arrest the browning. (Careful--it'll spatter like crazy)

FOAS: I think it's just tradition about okra and file. People will refer to some dish as an okra gumbo or a file gumbo.

Jessy: was it Mark Twain that said that Wagner's music is better than it sounds? I'm sure the experience of seeing the entire Ring is fantastic, but I can't listen to Wagner without thinking of 'What's Opera, Doc'--'Kill da Wabbit! Kill da Wabbit!'--which contains my favorite interchange in any cartoon:

E. Fudd as Wotan: 'Oh Bwoon-hilda, you're so wove-wy'
Bugs as Brunhilde: 'Yes I know it, I can't help it'

Arley: DK about Mark Twain, but that makes sense, yikes his operas are LONG. Found that 'Kill the wabbit' on youtube...too funny. I haven't seen that What's Opera, Doc? but I'm looking for it on netflix! (It isn't Wotan - Brunhilde's father - it's Siegfried - Brunhilde's nephew....oh well, incest is a game the whole family can play, Gods or not). OK I can go on forever, but this is a COOKING forum, not an opera forum! LOL !

I have had riverrat's gumbo. I guarantee you want to make it. She even sent me home the special ingredients to make it that can't be found up here in the north.
(Dumb me...haven't made it yet).
Sherry

There is no good reason not to have both okra and filé, even though it is not traditional. I don't think that any of the gumbo rules are really all that strict - I think most Cajun/Creole cooks in Louisiana (and SE Texas) improvise quite a bit, which helps to make their dishes more creative.

Lars

Jane, would you mind posting that recipe for Drago's charbroiled oysters? Last time I was in N.O. I ate a dozen of them. Fantastic stuff.

I'm almost embarrassed to say how many of these babies I consumed in four days, but honestly, a week later, I still can't stop thinking about them. I'm making them tomorrow!
On our last night there, the bartender, who had started in the kitchen, wrote the recipe down for me and it is just like this one that I found:

CHARBROILED OYSTERS

For over 100 years, some of the best oyster fishermen in Louisiana have been of Croatian origin. Many Croatians came to Louisiana and have been at the forefront of the oyster business; it's gotten to the point where if someone's serving you oysters and their surname ends with "-vich", you know you're in good hands.
Drago Cvitanovich has had an excellent restasurant in Metairie for years, and it's one of my parents' very favorite places to eat. Drago is famous for his Charbroiled Oysters, and recently shared his recipe with a local newspaper. The recipe is simple -- there's almost nothing to it -- but the key to it is getting the prettiest, fattest oysters you can find. Louisiana oysters are, or course, preferable, but Pacific oysters will also do very well. Shuck 'em yourself, too.

32 oysters, on the half shell
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (use Parmagiano Reggiano)
1/4 cup grated pecorino Romano cheese
1/2 cup finely chopped parsley
Heat the grill over medium-high heat.
Melt the butter with the garlic and pepper in a large skillet. Mix the Parmagiano and Romano cheeses in a small bowl.

Spoon some of the melted butter mixture onto each oyster. Add a pinch of the combined cheeses to each oyster, add a pinch of parsley, then place on the grill. Grill the oysters until they are hot,bubbly and puffed, about 8 minutes.

YIELD: 8 servings.

Note: I seriously doubt that 8 people would be satisfied with 32 oysters between them. I would count on at least 6 each and you definitely need good bread to soak up the sauce.
Jane

I swear, it is pretty darn difficult to get a bad meal in NO. I've had so many memorable and fabulous meals there. Every time I return I always try to recreate some of the dishes I had there, but I always fall short.

Where can this Canadian girl get good andouille sausage and tasso?

Okra is usually used in the gumbos that have seafood and tomatoes. File' is usually used in the gumbos that have chicken and sausage. For some reason, probably just because that's the way we've always had it, it just doesn't taste right when you mix the flavors and put okra and file' in the wrong gumbos!

BTW, there are lots of Croatians on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, also. I'm related to the Cvitanovich family. Another branch of the Cvitanovich's owns one of the best and most famous restaurants in Mississippi --- Mary Mahoney's. It's where CNN did most of their reporting after Katrina, and was the first restaurant to open back up after the storm.

I LOVE Karen's!

Here's the Gumbo I make year round. A favorite with family and friendsand some folks here have claimed to have loved it.
I've made it with Andouille sausage and shrimp. I've made it with shrimp and crab. I've even made it with chicken, and other spicy sausages. Gumbo is a soup you can play around with to suit your tastes. I serve this with rice, and homemade bread for sopping up the rich sauce.

Gumbo

2 medium onions, finely chopped (about 2 cups)
1 medium green bell pepper, chopped (about 1½ cups)
2 small stalks of celery, trimmed and chopped (1 cup)
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
1 teaspoon salt, or more to taste*
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
½ to 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon dried thyme, or 2 tablespoons fresh thyme
1½ teaspoons dried oregano, or 1 tablespoon fresh
2 tablespoons fresh basil
¾ cup canola oil
1 cup AP flour, or more if needed
5 to 6 cups homemade fish stock, but chicken stock will do
1 pound andouille (or other spicy sausage), sliced
2 pounds shrimp or crawfish meat
9 cups Cooked rice

In a skillet, brown the sausage (or meat of your choosing).

Make the roux. Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. When oil is hot, whisk in the flour. Whisk constantly, until roux reaches a very dark brown color, resembling chocolate buttercream (as pictured). The whole process will take between 15 to 20 minutes.
When the roux is nice, dark and thick, add the vegetables and spices. Stir for a few more minutes to soften vegetables.

Stir in the fish (or chicken) stock into the roux and vegetable mixture. Bring to a simmer Reduce the heat. Add the sausage, and simmer, mostly covered for about 1 hour.

If you're using shrimp, crawfish or crab, add it during the last 3-5 minutes of cooking. Serve over white rice.

As is the case with most soups, Gumbo will taste even better the following day.

*Add more salt (if needed). But only toward the end of cooking, because this soup will reduce, concentrating its flavors, and you might find it salty enough with just 1 tsp. salt.

In regards to Filé, I've used it only once, and found it added absolutely nothing to this dish, so I haven't used it since. And don't even get me started on okra.

Sol

I am the world's worst roux maker. I usually use Tony Cachere's Roux Mix (and hide the box!). Next time, though, I'm going to try Alton Brown's oven method. It has got to be better than Tony's mix or the mess I usually come up with. (I've also tried just browning the flour in the oven...that didn't work at all!)

Alton Brown's Oven Roux

4 ounces flour
4 ounces vegetable oil

Place the vegetable oil and flour into a 5 to 6-quart cast iron Dutch oven and whisk together to combine. Place on the middle shelf of the oven, uncovered, and bake for 1 1/2 hours, whisking 2 to 3 times throughout the cooking process.

I love Gumbo ANY way. These all look good. I've made pretty similar to several already posted. My favorite is shrimp w/ando. sausage.

I agree that the roux is the big key to it. I've had some good and some bad and it can ruin the whole dish if burnt tasting.