Shrimp Gumbo

During our stay at the ranch, we found out that Cousin Chris loves shrimp gumbo. I have successfully made a delicious turkey and sausage gumbo before but have never made it with shrimp. I felt a bit intimidated but excited at the same time.

When I look for recipes, I generally start with Food Network or Cook’s Country. I found a recipe on Food Network from Alton Brown. He has a scientific, tried, and true approach to cooking.
I trust that his recipes will have good results.

Shrimp Gumbo

4 ounces vegetable oil
4 ounces all-purpose flour
1 ½ pounds, raw, whole, head-on medium-sized (31-50 count) shrimp
2 quarts water
1 cup diced onion
½ cup diced celery
½ cup diced green peppers
2 tablespoons minced garlic
½ cup peeled, seeded, and chopped tomato
1 tablespoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon fresh thyme, chopped
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 bay leaves
½ pound andouille sausage, cut into 1/4 -inch pieces and browned
1 tablespoon file powder
Okra, fresh or frozen

I preheat the oven to 350-degrees and then put the vegetable oil and flour into the cast-iron Dutch oven. The recipe says to use a five to six-quart Dutch oven. I didn’t have one that big, so I used my smaller one instead.

One of the things I love about Alton Brown’s recipes is that he uses weight measurements, which are more accurate than measuring by volume. I did not, however, have a scale, so I guestimated the measurements. The most important thing for a roux is a one-to-one ratio, the same amount of oil as flour. I whisked the flour and vegetable oil together and put the cast iron in the oven uncovered. I used the middle shelf, baking the roux for an hour and a half. I whisked the mixture three times while it baked.

I de-headed, peeled, and deveined the shrimp while the roux cooked. Since we were in Texas, I wanted to use local shrimp. The store did not have local shrimp with the heads, so I went with frozen. I had a two-pound package of shrimp, so I used the whole package. I didn’t think it would hurt to have extra shrimp. When I started, I peeled the shrimp, pulled the head off, used a paring knife to cut a slit down the back, and pulled out the vein. It was tedious, but I enjoyed the process. At some point, I discovered that if I cut the end of the tail, I could grab the vein and pull the whole thing out. It made things much quicker once I realized that. I put the shrimp in a bowl and put it in the refrigerator.

Preparing the shrimp took almost the full hour and a half. I took the roux out of the oven and set it aside. (Handy tip: put a towel over the hot handle on the pan, so you don’t forget it’s hot.)

I put the heads and shells in a four-quart saucepan with two quarts of water on high heat until it started to boil. I turned the heat down to low and simmered the stock for about an hour. It is supposed to reduce by half to one quart of liquid.

While the shrimp stock cooked, I finished my mise en place and browned the sausage. I used more sausage than the recipe called for as well.

After an hour, the stock looked to me like it was down to half the liquid. I took it off the heat and strained the liquid. I set the stock aside and threw the solids away.

If I had a larger Dutch oven, I would have put the roux over medium-high heat. Since the one I had wasn’t big enough to hold the rest of the gumbo, I moved the roux to a stockpot instead. I added the onions, celery, and green peppers and cooked them for about 7 minutes until the onions were translucent. I constantly stirred the vegetables to keep them from burning. I added the garlic and cooked the vegetables for another thirty seconds until I could smell the garlic. (Handy tip: garlic cooks quickly. When recipes call for cooking it with vegetables, add the garlic when the vegetables are close to done, so it doesn’t burn.)

I added the tomatoes, salt, black pepper, thyme, cayenne pepper, and bay leaves, stirring as I went.

Next, I added the shrimp broth while continually whisking. I turned the heat down to low, covered the pot, and let it cook for 35 minutes. I didn’t measure the shrimp stock. Chris commented that it looked like more than one quart of liquid.

After 35 minutes, the gumbo was not as thick as I wanted. It could have been because I did not reduce the stock enough or incorrectly estimated my oil and flour measurements. Measuring by volume is not the same as measuring by weight. Chris suggested using a slurry (a cornstarch and water mixture). I added the slurry and cooked it for about another half hour to get the right consistency.

I turned the heat off and added the shrimp and sausage. I added the file powder as I stirred the meat in. I covered the pot and let it sit for another ten minutes before serving the gumbo over rice.
The shrimp was a tad undercooked. I should have cut one open to make sure the shrimp cooked through. Otherwise, the gumbo was delicious. The leftovers were even better because the shrimp thoroughly cooked while reheating.

While the gumbo was fantastic, I felt it was missing something, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. While watching Cook’s Country a few days later, I watched a gumbo recipe. Suddenly, a lightbulb went off. I didn’t put okra in the gumbo. The recipe didn’t call for it, and I didn’t even think about it. It’s funny that the last gumbo I made didn’t call for okra either. I remembered to put it in that time. To me, gumbo isn’t gumbo without okra.

With okra and rice, a serving has 551 calories, with 44 grams of carbs, 3 grams of fiber, 39 grams of protein, and 25 grams of fat.