Gumbo and Friends

Our New Year's resolution this year was to have more dinner parties.  In the past several years we had let life get in the way too much.  Time to get back to spending time with friends and one of our favorite ways to do that is over food and drink.

It's about this time of year that I make gumbo and it is always good to have friends over so that we don't have to eat leftovers for days and days and days.  However, I do find gumbo something rather challenging to center a meal around.  I know you can do other typical New Orleans' foods, but I decided to lean toward the French end of the spectrum. So, the menu ended up being Duxelles Tartlets topped with a baby spinach salad; Gumbo over brown rice, Honey-orange cake with orange sauce, pistachios and vanilla ice cream.  We served a Gruet Brut prior to the first course, accompanied by parmesan thyme crackers, dried apricots with meyer lemon basil chevre, and savory spiced pecans.  We paired the first and main course with a German white wine from Mosel: St. Urbans-Hof 2010 Reisling.

You can find my recipe for the duxelles on a previous post. To make the dish, fill a pre-baked warm tartlets shell with the duxelle mixture. The baby spinach salad was just baby spinach leaves tossed with a lemon vinaigrette and then placed on top of the filled tartlet.

The gumbo recipe takes an extremely long time to make. The roux itself takes almost an hour of constant attention, then the cooking of the Cajun holy trinity (celery, onions, green pepper) takes another 45 minutes of steady attention, and the rest takes a couple of hours to simmer with attention every half hour or so to ensure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pan.  Is it worth it?  Everyone who has eaten it thinks so.  The original recipe comes from an old Bon Appetit magazine.  You can use different meats than presented here. You could add diced chicken breasts, scallops, diced white fish such as flounder, etc.  The andouille sausage makes the dish if you are a meat-eater, but for vegetarians or pescatarians, it's fairly easy to adjust the recipe and leave out the meat components.

Gumbo

Ingredients

• 1 cup canola oil
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 large onions, diced
• 3 stalks celery, diced
• 1 large green pepper, diced
• 6 large garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 cup fresh chopped parsley
• 1 large tomato, diced
• 14 ounces canned diced tomatoes, pureed
• 1 Tablespoon fresh minced rosemary
• 1 teaspoon fresh minced thyme
• 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 2 Tablespoons Pickapeppa sauce
• 1 teaspoon cayenne (less if you don't like it spicy)
• 2 whole dried chilies (I use arbol chilies, they have a slight smoky flavor)
• 2 bay leaves
• 2-4 quarts chicken or vegetable stock
• 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 pound okra, cut into 1/2" slices
• 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
• 1 pound andouille sausage, sliced
• 1 pound shrimp, shelled
• 1 pound crawfish tail meat
• 2 Tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 Tablespoon Filé powder, plus extra for garnish

Preparation

Slowly heat oil in a heavy-bottomed large pot.  I use my 5 1/2 quart Le Creuset pot. With the heat on low, gradually add flour and stir with a wooden spoon or flat whisk until roux is nicely browned (rust color), about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

This may look like the right color, but keep going...

 

Now you are there...

Increase heat to medium and add onions, celery, green pepper, parsley and garlic to roux.  Cook until vegetables are soft, stirring often, about 30-45 minutes.

Heat the 2 Tablespoons oil in large heavy skillet over medium low heat.  Add okra and vinegar and cook until okra is soft, stirring occasionally, 25-30 minutes.  Add to onion mixture.

Add all the rest, except meat, lemon juice and filé powder. You can chop the dried chilies or leave them whole. Simmer until very thick, stirring occasionally, about 3 hours.  Add the meats and lemon juice.  Cook until meats have warmed through.  Stir in filé powder.  Remove bay leaves and, if you left them whole, the chilies. To serve, spoon over cooked rice in soup bowls.  Dust with a pinch of extra filé powder.  Serve with Tabasco Habanero Sauce.  It can be hard to find, but it's worth the effort.  Habanero sauce may seem like it would be extra hot and it is, but it's less about the heat than the fruity flavor.  Unlike other Tabasco sauces, this Tabasco is made with papaya, mango and banana.  It rounds out the rich, complex and deep flavors of the dish. Trust me, if you can take a little heat, this is be best hot sauce to serve alongside this delicious gumbo.

Valentine's Preparations

We have some nice wine that we want to have for Valentine's day so my job is to come up with a dinner menu.  What to have...what to have. We love rack of lamb, which will go nicely with a hearty red.  So, today I decided to slip it into a marinade. It is a little early to do this step, but since Valentine's day is a weekday it's just going to have to do.  I'll figure out the rest of dinner Monday night.

Here is the marinade recipe - adapted from an old Food & Wine recipe.

Port-Marinated Rack of Lamb

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup ruby port
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 cup whole-grain mustard
• 2 Tablespoons fresh rosemary, chopped
• 1 Tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 teaspoons coarsely ground fennel seeds
• 1 teaspoon mace, freshly ground if possible
• 1 Tablespoon shallots, minced
• 2 racks of lamb, chine bones removed and frenched
• Kosher salt & freshly ground pepper

Preparation

In a large glass baking dish, combine all ingredients except the lamb and  kosher salt and last bit of freshly ground black pepper.  Add the lamb and turn to coat.  Let stand at room temperature for 40 minutes.  You can leave it in the marinade and refrigerate if you want to make this ahead.  Bring marinated meat to room temperature before proceeding.

Meanwhile, light a grill or preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Drain the lamb and scrape off the marinade.  Season the racks with kosher salt and pepper.  Grill over a medium-hot fire for 10 to 15 minutes, turning often, until an instant-read thermometer registers 130 degrees for medium rare.  Alternatively, heat a large, ovenproof skillet and sear the lamb over moderately high heat until browned on both sides, 5 to 6 minutes total.  Transfer the skillet to the oven and roast the lamb for 12 minutes for medium rare.

Transfer the lamb to a cutting board and let rest for 5 minutes.  Cut the lamb between the bones into chops, arrange 3-4 chops on each plate and serve.

I think I might start this feast with roasted heads of garlic and crusty bread.  Mmmm.  Happy Valentine's Day!