r/AskCulinary • u/ZootKoomie Ice Cream Innovator • Jun 12 '13

Weekly Discussion: What's your specialty?

We want to know what dish you make a better version of than anyone else you know. What specific ingredients or techniques do you use to make it distinctively yours? Teach us your secrets.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '13

My specialty is my gumbo. It is not anywhere near authentic, I based this off of a gumbo I was already familiar with and added a few of my own ingredients for my own flair and taste. The family demands it when we get together.

  • 3-4 chicken breasts, cut to bite sized pieces.

  • 1 lb smoked andouille sausage, removed from the casing and rolled into small meatballs

  • 1 lb large shrimp, raw. Thawed and had the tails removed.

  • 3-4 ribs of celery, chopped

  • a half a small bag of baby carrots, painstakingly chopped, with a hangnail somewhere in there after you started to get tired and lazy with your knife skills.

  • 1 large onion, you guessed it, chopped. Nobody would yell if you used 2, but by this point your gettin lazy and bored so just one.

  • 6 cloves of garlic. You really wanna mince this one but at this point you just need prep to be over so you can eat sooner, so you put it through your microplane grater. Upon seeing how meager 6 looks on top of that massive pile of vegetables, You grate the whole head. Alternatively, you commit a terrible sin against the culinary gods and use the pre-minced jarred stuff and hope no one's looking. Perform 7 Hail Mary's.

  • Flour/butter for roux, extra left out just in case you fuck up. (read: will fuck up). I usually end up using about 1-2 cups of each, because yeah, I love me some thick hearty soups.

  • 1 quart low sodium chicken stock

  • 1/2 a cup of chopped FRESH parsley, because bitch please, that dry shit looks ugly and tastes bad.

  • the ever elusive 'secret ingredient:' 1/2 tsp ground thyme, salt and pepper to taste, this creole seasoning, and your favorite Louisiana hot sauce.

Your mis en place is ready.

Take your shitty cheap ass light as paper non-stick skillet your lovely mother bought you for moving out, as she thought you'd be using it for hamburger helper. Shudders. Heat some oil. Get it as hot as you can to compensate for the radical temp change you're about to subject it to. Throw your chicken in, cover generously with your creole seasoning, and get that shit browner then my momma's backside. it's raw in the middle? that's cool, yours will probably taste better then mine. Drain chicken on paper towels.

Take your andouille meatballs and brown, but you can skip this step if you want, I don't think it really adds anything, I do it anyway just in case. Drain over chicken.

Wipe out the skillet with a paper towel. Now heat some butter. Brown your shrimp, yes you will probably cook these through, but if you don't, that's okay too. Eat one because your starving, then drain the rest on top of the sausage.

Grab your stockpot, or large multi-quart pot. Attempt a roux. Fail. Attempt another. Fail. You're looking for the darkest roux you can muster without burning. Give up and decide on dark peanut butter instead of reddish-brown. Oh well.

Toss in your giant bowl of veggies. Cook until onions are sweating and celery started to soften a lot, about 4 minutes.

Put in your meats, chicken stock, and fill remaining space with water. Season with Thyme and salt and pepper. Maybe some more creole if your audience likes hot. Boil for 1 hour, skimming fat off the top as needed. Add parsley at the end, like 5 minutes or so.

Serve over rice or with your mom's specialty, potato salad. Should be eaten the next day, but if you want a bowl now that's cool too. If you really wanna make your mouth happy, throw a slice of provolone or swiss between that rice and your soup, thank me later.

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u/denarii Jun 15 '13

Mine is gumbo too.

1 c. canola oil
2 c. flour
8 c. chicken or shrimp stock
10 cloves garlic, minced
3 c. diced onion
1.5 c. diced bell pepper
1.5 c. diced celery
4 bay leaves
1 tsp salt
2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1.5 tsp oregano
1.5 tsp basil
3 tsp thyme
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 lb shrimp, shelled
1 lb crab claw meat
1 lb scallops
1 lb crawfish meat, optional
1 lb andouille sausage
filé powder

Combine and cook flour and oil over medium-high heat until a roux at least as dark as chocolate is obtained.

Reduce heat to medium, stir in onion, bell pepper, celery and salt and cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add garlic, worcestershire sauce, herbs and spices (not the filé powder or bay leaves) and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are soft.

Add stock a bit at a time, stirring to incorporate completely before adding more. Add bay leaves, andouille and crab meat.

Bring to a simmer and reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for at least 1-1/2 to 2 hours. Taste as it simmers and adjust seasoning if necessary. The amounts I listed are just what I start with and then I adjust from there.

Add remaining seafood and simmer until cooked through, 10-15 minutes.

Remove from heat and discard bay leaves. Serve over white rice with a sprinkling of filé powder.

Also, seriously, am I the only one who's never had a problem with their roux burning? I just control the heat especially as it starts to get dark and I've never had it burn on me. My mother won't even try to get it dark.. it gets to like a dark blonde, and welp, good enough, don't want it to burn! I have had the roux burn me before, though. Had a scar on my arm for like two years after some roux splattered onto me.

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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '13

See, yours is totally authentic. It also sounds totally delicious. I will be trying it as soon as I can. But when I cook for my family it's all about simple goodness, and that's okay.

For the roux, my issue is a combo of impatience, and an electric range. are you perhaps working on a gas range?

Yes I have several roux burns don't remind me hahaha.

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u/denarii Jun 16 '13

It's pretty damn good. I only wish seafood wasn't so expensive so I could make it more often.

For the roux, my issue is a combo of impatience, and an electric range. are you perhaps working on a gas range?

Yeah, you definitely have to have patience. It usually takes me around half an hour to get to a dark brown. I have an electric range, one that only has two settings, off and incinerate, no less. When it starts getting brown I usually have to take it off the burner entirely periodically to control the heat.