Chicken and Sausage Gumbo
People often over-complicate gumbo, and understandably so; it’s one of those dishes that everyone has an opinion on how it should be made. Growing up, I noticed that my momma kept her proteins separated by land and sea. She also had rules that you never put okra or tomato in chicken and sausage gumbo, which makes it a Cajun-Style Gumbo as opposed to her Creole-Style Seafood Gumbo, which has tomato and okra. She used to always tell me when you cook with all your heart and soul, people will taste it in the dish. I promise you, you will feel the love with this succulent dish.
Chicken and Sausage Gumbo, Cooking with Concetta
This is a relatively simple recipe that only has a few steps involved. The most time consuming part of the recipe is letting it boil down together, which should be a minimum of 2-3 hours. Unlike Seafood Gumbo, you don’t necessarily need to let it cool down before consumption, but everyone knows, gumbo is always better the next day.
Ingredients
1 cup Vegetable Oil
1 1/2 cup AP Flour
1 Yellow Onion, diced
3 Stalks Celery, diced
2 tbl Fresh Garlic, Minced
2 lb Chicken (I prefer dark meat as in legs and thighs, but it’s up to you. You can also purchase a rotisserie chicken to speed up the process)
1 pack Kielbasa Sausage cut into 1/2 inch slices.
64 oz chicken stock
3 Whole Bay Leaves
Directions
Pat dry chicken and season generously with Maceo Seasoned Salt. In a high heat skillet, add a little vegetable oil to coat the bottom of the pan and brown chicken on all sides. Once browned, remove from pan. Add remaining vegetable oil to the pan. Once the oil glistens, slowly add flour and whisk until you get a dark brown roux. (This takes some time, so be patient. Rushing roux will result in burning it and nobody wants a burned roux). This is a tricky part, and probably the reason people are afraid to attempt to make gumbo. Don’t get scared to take it as dark brown as you can. It might look too dark, but it’s not. Once you start adding liquids, it will lighten up.
Once you get your roux to a nice dark brown (dark as in walnut) add in your diced celery and onion and reduce your heat to medium. Stirring this in will cool down the roux by transferring the heat to the vegetables. After a few minutes, add in garlic and cook for about 2 more minutes.
Transfer roux mixture to a large stock pot and stir in chicken stock and water. I usually add about a gallon’s worth of liquid, splitting it evenly between chicken stock and water.
Add in chicken, sausage, and remaining seasoning and stir well to fully incorporate everything together. Bring back to a medium high heat and bring to a rolling boil for about 2 hours. Because of the sausage you will notice quite a bit of grease on the top. I use a shallow ladle and scoop it out as it cooks. Be sure to stir every now and then to make sure things aren’t sticking to the bottom.
After a couple hours, you can cook up some rice and serve, or turn heat off and let it cool down to put in the refrigerator for next day consumption (if you can wait that long).
One thing I feel like I do every time I make gumbo and instantly regret it, is tasting it right when I add everything together. Don’t. Do. It. Give it time to come together like The Beatles. This is not an instant dish.
For those of you who are busy (everyone) a few shortcuts I’ve worked into making this recipe are below:
Use a rotisserie chicken, or left over chicken from a previous meal. This cuts the browning process out of the picture, which takes about 30 to 45 minutes out of the prep time. While that flavor from browning the chicken adds an extra depth that cannot be replicated, the gumbo will still turn out delicious as ever.
If you don’t eat pork, you can substitute a smoked chicken or beef sausage to the dish.
Start the dish as SOON as you get home. Like, I’m talking walk in the door, wash ya hands, and get to cookin. Once its all combined in the stock pot, it has to cook a couple hours, so you are freed up to take care of all the other little things around the house that need to get done.
(Not a shortcut) but a good plan: Make this on a weekend day or day off so you have time to make and enjoy it same day. It also makes enough for a couple days worth of meals.
Enjoy and Stay Spicy!