Jersey Gumbo

In a pale and pathetic impersonation of our beloved Southern brethren I made some gumbo over the weekend.

Of course, as is usually the case, I just sort of made it up as I went along.

Cajun Trinity: onion, celery, bell pepper
Bingley Trinity (of the moment): onion, celery, fennel

Being desirous of their flesh I beer-canned a couple of buzzards

And while they were cooling down I got my Murder on the Roux Morgue going. Various sources gave me different numbers for the flour/oil ratio, I ended up going for 50/50

As it simmers along one is told to let it turn a nice “walnut” brown…and the next sentence is always “but if it goes too far it is ruined and you have to start again.” This little detail convinced me that my family would not suffer if I opted for “sort of matches the cherry cabinets” instead of “walnut” as my target color

in goes the Bingley Trinity

stir, saute for a couple of minutes and add lots of garlic

and then a goodly portion of the by now shredded buzzard (about 1 whole bird’s worth)

This being New Jersey “real” andouille sausage was in somewhat short supply, so this would have to do

so with about a quart of chicken stock and various cajun-esque spices (1 heaping tablespoon each of Emeril’s Essence and a blackening seasoning I found somewhere) into the pot it all went

oh and a can of diced ‘maters, juice and all

and of course a pound of frozen Oprah okra

Now frugal cheap Scot that I am I took the other buzzard and parceled out the meat into roughly one pound lots for freezing and

oops

anyhow, like I said, I vac-sealed the leftover chicken for later meals

and made sure my Bride and myself had sufficient libational reserves to carry us through the couple of simmering hours until the gumbo was ready.

I’ve always liked this Lindemans Bin 65 as a good, cheap, full bodied Aussie-style chardonnay. You can almost always find it for around $6. Now I have to say they’ve changed it, in my opinion. It used to be rather oakey, which I lurved, and now the oak is much less pronounced than before. Still a great buy but not the style that I’ve come to prefer.

Something in the style that I do prefer are bacon/romano drop biscuits

and fresh out of the oven

put some brown rice in a bowl, ladle on the gumbo, add a couple of biscuits and

Yo! Let them good times roll, youse guys!

Forgive me Rob, for I have sinned…

6 Responses to “Jersey Gumbo”

1. aelfheld says:

   February 23, 2012 at 11:04 am

   50/50 is the correct proportion but, really, fennel?!?

2. Mr. Bingley says:

   February 23, 2012 at 11:13 am

   I know, I know, but I’ve never been a big bell pepper fan…and ShopRong had a sale on the fennel!

3. Jim - PRS says:

   February 23, 2012 at 12:39 pm

   Damn, that looks great.

4. Rob says:

   February 23, 2012 at 5:54 pm

   The coloring looks about right for most people but I like mine a little darker. I can’t wrap my mind around fennel in gumbo, either. Still, I’d probably hit that.

5. Fausta says:

   February 23, 2012 at 6:10 pm

   I like fennel. Interesting choice for gumbo, too.

   Claude rocks!

6. Dr Alice says:

   February 23, 2012 at 6:44 pm

   That looks delicious! And I’m glad Claude got his tasty snack, too.