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Dark roux only thickens a bit, not like a blonde roux in etoufee does at leat. File or Okra both also only thicken slightly. The only real thing to avoid is using file and Okra together. No one does that, no need for it imo. Both dark roux and okra or file combined will thicken it enough. Okra is easier to find (check the freezer section for chopped okra) so I always steer people that way. But, if you want to try it you can buy file powder online etc and its added in as the dish is served. Okra can get slimy but if you cook it in early enough and don't use too much many people don't notice. Some are more sensitive to that mouthfeel though.
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Nov 18, 2019 12:36
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We talking about gumbo in here, nice. I use okra pretty much exclusively because I love the taste of it and to me, it's what makes gumbo taste like gumbo. I don 't mind the "slime" but I will sometimes sauté the okra a bit to get some of the snot off it before putting it in. Filé is more to add afterward. I made this for the LSU game. Here's an example of a dark roux, so dark that I had to whip the poo poo out of it to get it back together with the stock because it wanted to separate. But the flavor is something else. These pics are at 0 minutes, 10 minutes, and 20 minutes at high heat, then after another 5 with the onions in it.     The final result.  In my opinion, if you see darker gumbo than this, it wasn't made with a fresh roux (or the cook used kitchen bouquet some other coloring). Anything darker would have resulted in a hosed up gumbo. Maybe there's some way of doing it in the oven or dry or something that gets darker but I've never been able to get it darker than this without the gumbo being weird or separating or tasting off. Also I've started putting the onions and peppers through the processor to get them really fine, I like the way the gumbo comes out less crowded and the things that are in it (meat, shrimps, whatever) can shine better. Phil Moscowitz fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Nov 18, 2019 |
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Nov 18, 2019 16:38
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Oh cool this thread is back! I made Jambalaya this weekend for the first time and it was pretty awesome. My local kinda fancy grocery store does a HelloFresh-esque meal deal every week and you get a bit of a discount vs. if you bought everything individually and this week was Jambalaya. I combined the store's low-effort recipe and the version Issac Toups made for Vice so it ended up somewhere between Creole and Cajun. Disclaimer: when I make it again I'll chop all my own stuff but I have joint issues so the ability to minimize chopping for a trial run was pretty nice. I formed the fresh andouille sausage into tiny balls and seared them and the pre-cut chicken breast (wish it had been leg quarters but oh well) off for a bit in the same pot I was going to cook in. Then I made a roux, dumped in the pre-cut trinity (supplemented with additional onion) followed by garlic and a minced chili (purchased/prepped separately). Then I added chicken stock and the can of tomatoes from the kit and simmered on the stovetop for an hour. Seasoned with ~1tbs black pepper, ~1tbs 'Cajun' seasoning from the kit, and a couple bay leaves. After the hour was up I dumped in 2 cups of rice/ the seared meats and finished in the oven for half an hour at 350. I got a bit nervous when making the roux so I only got it to about milk chocolate color, not the dark cocoa color that's probably better, but for my first go around I think it went fairly well! Turned out pretty delicious and made a fuckton of food. No pics because I forgot and also all jambalayas look pretty much the same.
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Nov 18, 2019 17:37
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Phil Moscowitz posted:Also I've started putting the onions and peppers through the processor to get them really fine, I like the way the gumbo comes out less crowded and the things that are in it (meat, shrimps, whatever) can shine better. I might start doing that. Bell peppers are a bitch to dice quickly. I do roux (more brown than black), okra, and filé, with filé at the very end.
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Nov 18, 2019 17:39
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Comb Your Beard posted:I might start doing that. Bell peppers are a bitch to dice quickly. They have a lot of water in them so I usually press the processed pieces through a wire mesh sieve before I put them in. Overall I’ve tended toward smaller pieces of everything (except shrimp and okra) to give the soup room to come out.
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Nov 18, 2019 18:23
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For poultry gumbos, I like to get my roux dark but not too dark - pretty similar to what Phil Moscowitz posted above. For seafood gumbo, I like a lighter roux - somewhere past peanut butter but not all the way to milk chocolate. I was a bit confused by the grocery store jambalaya though. I grew up near New Orleans eating "red" jambalaya and can't recall ever seeing a roux-based jambalaya. Is that a Cajun thing?
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Nov 18, 2019 18:30
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Discussion Quorum posted:I grew up near New Orleans eating "red" jambalaya and can't recall ever seeing a roux-based jambalaya. Is that a Cajun thing? Not to my knowledge. I always ate tomato in my jambalaya as well but I know the central-LA guys have theirs without tomato more often than not.
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Nov 18, 2019 18:31
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Discussion Quorum posted:For poultry gumbos, I like to get my roux dark but not too dark - pretty similar to what Phil Moscowitz posted above. For seafood gumbo, I like a lighter roux - somewhere past peanut butter but not all the way to milk chocolate. I stole that from Issac Toup's recipe - https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3bg77/easy-jambalaya-recipe The video of him making it on the YouTube Munchies channel is extremely fun and that's where he says it's a Cajun-style jambalaya. He's really entertaining on camera.
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Nov 18, 2019 18:39
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Discussion Quorum posted:I was a bit confused by the grocery store jambalaya though. I grew up near New Orleans eating "red" jambalaya and can't recall ever seeing a roux-based jambalaya. Is that a Cajun thing? yeah i think there's one major type of jambalaya (e: like Toups' above) that's basically cooking the rice in a roux-based gravy. it's effectively like making gumbo except you throw in rice and slow cook until it's absorbed everything. i never lived outside of new orleans but i almost never saw the tomato-type there, i feel like it's kinda gone out of style. probably something to do with the resurgence of fancy-cajun-everything in the past decade eke out fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Nov 18, 2019 |
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Nov 18, 2019 18:50
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I don't think I would ever do a roux jambalaya, if only because not needing to make roux is a good reason to cook jambalaya in the first place. Jambalaya has a really good effort:reward ratio, why mess with that? Also seems like it'd be carb overload with both flour and rice? I guess you could do a rich man's jambalaya and have more meat & veg, less rice. Again that just brings down the PER. I do brown the chicken in a separate pan, then deglaze it with some beer and scrape that whole mess into the main pot.
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Nov 19, 2019 01:52
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Klyith posted:Also seems like it'd be carb overload with both flour and rice? having your rice saturated with gravy is a feature, not a bug
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Nov 19, 2019 04:08
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Klyith posted:
If carbs are a concern then gumbo may not be for you, friend. Jambalaya too. Seems like it may well be worse, but for what its worth we don't put roux in ours, just stock. eke out posted:having your rice saturated with gravy is a feature, not a bug Wait until they find out that you can, and should, put some potato salad in there sometimes too. Honestly if you're not eating like three meals worth of food in a bowl then you're missing out on something. Plek fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Nov 19, 2019 |
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Nov 19, 2019 04:44
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Plek posted:Wait until they find out that you can, and should, put some potato salad in there sometimes too. Honestly if you're not eating like three meals worth of food in a bowl then you're missing out on something. If your bowl isn't full of potato salad, rice, gumbo, and topped with Club crackers and hot sauce, are you even eating anything?
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Nov 19, 2019 05:52
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Klyith posted:I don't think I would ever do a roux jambalaya, if only because not needing to make roux is a good reason to cook jambalaya in the first place. Jambalaya has a really good effort:reward ratio, why mess with that? I mean, the roux literally the difference between Creole style and Cajun style. It's not a matter of one being better than the other. Creole jambalaya is more Spanish influenced and is more paella-like and Cajun is more French. For what it's worth I really liked the depth of flavor I got even using a blander cut of chicken and only about 10oz of sausage. Also, the carbs are kinda the point. The Cajun version especially is a poor man's meal, it's supposed to fill you up cheap. Vegetables weren't expensive when you grew em in the garden and pigs and chickens had/have a good effort:meat ratio. Currently you can get green peppers, garlic, and onions cheap enough and chicken either goes on sale all the time or you can buy it whole and break it down yourself. The only relatively expensive ingredient is the sausage, and that's used more as a spice than anything else.
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Nov 19, 2019 12:29
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KitConstantine posted:I mean, the roux literally the difference between Creole style and Cajun style. Is that true? I've eaten Jambalaya all over LA most of my young adult life and have only encountered roux in jambalaya through that Isaac Toups recipe or a few other random internet spots doing it. I'll double check but I haven't seen it in Prudhomme, Wilson's or my 1901-era Picayune cookbooks either. I feel like this is more rare than a creole vs cajun style thing. Tomatoes are more creole, but not sure about the roux there. Not trying to call you out or anything, just mentioning it because I have never heard of that before.
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Nov 19, 2019 12:45
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That Works posted:Is that true? nah it's a thing, here's what Mary Land says:  while i've never made a jambalaya with the "juice from a hundred fat Louisiana oysters" she does specify that her version is not like the common dish of "boiled rice and gravy... frequently served under the name of jambalaya"
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Nov 19, 2019 12:54
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eke out posted:nah it's a thing, here's what Mary Land says: That could be a nod to people who don't know what they're cooking calling something jambalaya in my mind. Outside of Toups I've not seen a recipe with roux in any of the other kinda standards out there. Mind you I have no dog in this fight, just am curious because I'm surprised to not know of it if its actually widespread. e: the waters muddy ever further https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/letters/article_0beb80a0-4e3c-11e8-b455-57de0d717cbc.html That Works fucked around with this message at 13:03 on Nov 19, 2019 |
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Nov 19, 2019 13:00
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That Works posted:That could be a nod to people who don't know what they're cooking calling something jambalaya in my mind. Outside of Toups I've not seen a recipe with roux in any of the other kinda standards out there. but in 1954 this old lady was recognizing that roux-based jambalaya was common in louisiana, regardless of whether you want to say it's "technically" jambalaya or not eke out fucked around with this message at 13:06 on Nov 19, 2019 |
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Nov 19, 2019 13:04
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That Works posted:That could be a nod to people who don't know what they're cooking calling something jambalaya in my mind. Outside of Toups I've not seen a recipe with roux in any of the other kinda standards out there. The Justin Williams Cajun cookbook my mom has also uses roux in it's recipe. So I would say that the waters are quite clear: Cajun and Creole jambalaya are two fairly different dishes that happen to share the same name.
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Nov 19, 2019 13:55
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Last time I was at the cajun festival in Lafayette I had two different jambalaya's, both excellent, and I asked about roux vs no roux because I was curious and they were both much more delicious One had roux and one didn't. Doesn't really settle anything except to say that 'some cajuns put roux in their jambalaya.' I've since made it with roux (i don't ever put tomatoes in mine) and it does give a little more richness, but also is alot more work and I want my jambalaya to be easy.
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Nov 19, 2019 14:25
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That Works posted:I'll double check but I haven't seen it in Prudhomme, Wilson's or my 1901-era Picayune cookbooks either. How many recipes in the 1901 cookbook use a cajun roux? Because apparently the dark roux was a fairly recent invention at that point? Or at least there aren't written references to it past the late 1880s. Though maybe cajuns had been making dark roux since shortly after they got booted out of Canada and just never wrote anything down. KitConstantine posted:Also, the carbs are kinda the point. The Cajun version especially is a poor man's meal, it's supposed to fill you up cheap. Oh yeah for sure but I don't work on a farm. My critiques were strictly personal for why I wasn't sold on it -- I'd eat it up if given some, but don't think I'll make it that way myself.
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Nov 19, 2019 15:17
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Klyith posted:
Fair enough. It is really tasty though, and I'd try it at least once just to compare to the tomato version.
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Nov 19, 2019 15:29
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I've never made or eaten (to my knowledge) jambalaya with roux. None of my books use a roux but looking around the internet I see it's pretty established. Maybe I'll have to try that out.
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Nov 19, 2019 16:32
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Phil Moscowitz posted:I've never made or eaten (to my knowledge) jambalaya with roux. None of my books use a roux but looking around the internet I see it's pretty established. Maybe I'll have to try that out. I'm glad it's not just me then. I feel pretty experienced here otherwise and this was throwing me for a loop.
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Nov 19, 2019 16:39
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That Works posted:I'm glad it's not just me then. I feel pretty experienced here otherwise and this was throwing me for a loop. I didn't realize it was such an uncommon thing! Like I said, growing up my mom's go-to version used roux so it didn't seem that unusual to me. I guess we all learned something 
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Nov 19, 2019 16:45
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Roux chat reminded me. Does anyone have a good recipe for no roux etouffee? I used to have one but I'll be damned if I can find it.
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Nov 19, 2019 17:13
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That Works posted:I'm glad it's not just me then. I feel pretty experienced here otherwise and this was throwing me for a loop.  I was not expecting this to kick up such a debate. I've had jambalaya that is both wetter and dryer than how I make it, but was never aware of any sort of roux or gravy. Could be that most of the Cajun jambalaya I've had has been restaurant/festival fare and ease of preparation came into play. But for a second there I thought everyone was going to think I grew up in the suburbs eating jambalaya from a Zatarain's box. I mean, I did, but I'd rather it not be so obvious 
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Nov 19, 2019 20:04
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Count me as another person that's never had roux in a jambalaya. I grew up in Southwest LA, so there may be regional differences at play for a lot of dishes. TBH, I'm not a fan of most creole style stuff - there's usually way too much tomato in the dish. I'll put tomato paste in my jambalaya, but that's about it. Okra also makes gumbo too slimy, at least from the ones I've had. I've sworn off any gumbo that contains any amount of okra in it, which a lot of "cajun" restaurants tend to have, especially north of the Mason-Dixon line.
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Nov 19, 2019 20:16
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There’s definitely a very common homemade gumbo style that I’ve had a lot of, that is very soupy, bland other than salty/black peppery, and typically is made with chicken (stringy) and sausage. Usually there’s no okra. It tends to show up at hunting camps or tailgates and I’m never that impressed with it.
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Nov 19, 2019 21:30
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e. double post go tigers Phil Moscowitz fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Nov 19, 2019 |
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Nov 19, 2019 21:31
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Discussion Quorum posted:Now that we're finally seeing some cooler weather, I made my first gumbo of the year for the LSU-Ole Miss game. I tried something a little different this time - normally I brown my chicken in sausage in a skillet while I make my roux in the pot, then deglaze and dump the skillet into the pot later. This time I browned my chicken and sausage in the gumbo pot, then added the flour to the rendered fat (plus a bit of oil for volume). I don't think I will do it again because 1) the spices I put on the chicken, particularly the paprika, were starting to burn under the roux, meaning I had to bail out to the trinity earlier (and a little lighter) than intended, and 2) I think there was still some moisture in the oil, causing some (though not nearly all) of the flour to turn into tiny micro-dumplings that floated to the top of the gumbo rather than incorporate. I made some today and actually tried it this way and I bailed before it got as dark as I wanted. I also didn't realize how little fat I had left so I needed to supplement with oil too, but I had a lot of fond I needed to scrape (I did chicken and sausage). FWIW Prudhomme's book suggests this way. I'm usually a little cautious about going too dark because on more than once occasion I've wasted a lot of time and then burnt my roux hah. It's not a dish I make a ton so but I'd think with more experience and finessse I'd be able to get it darker without burning. Either way, this is gonna be awesome in a couple hours and even better when it's fortified with leftover turkey On that note, are there preferred darknesses based on what protein you are supposed to use?
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Nov 25, 2019 22:41
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Someone needs to Pantone guide roux colours for reference.
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Nov 26, 2019 04:27
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Is the etoufee recipe linked on the first page still the standard or is there a better one?
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Dec 27, 2019 18:11
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Shooting Blanks posted:Is the etoufee recipe linked on the first page still the standard or is there a better one? I had one of the nolacuisine.com recipes linked in a post on the first page. I always found it a good standard starting point. I also liked Justin Wilson's recipe from one of his cookbooks. I'm sure Prudhomme or Folse etc would also have good ones. Its a pretty adaptable dish so there will be a lot of variation between recipes. http://www.nolacuisine.com/2006/12/28/shrimp-etouffee-recipe/ That's a shrimp etoufee. You could do chicken and sausage as well in which case you'd use chicken stock instead of a seafood stock.
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Dec 27, 2019 19:34
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Seconding that recipe. Also definitely make your own stock and spices
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Dec 27, 2019 19:46
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This will be from scratch in New England, including stock. But I can wrangle a quick shrimp stock
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Dec 27, 2019 19:52
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Shooting Blanks posted:This will be from scratch in New England, including stock. But I can wrangle a quick shrimp stock I'm in NE too these days. I'd recommend just not bothering with crawfish. Shrimp and oysters up here are great though.
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Dec 27, 2019 19:54
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Yeah I was planning on shrimp. Oysters here are not great though, no matter how much you pay.
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Dec 27, 2019 20:40
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Alright, it’s nearly time. Let’s talk king cakes. I like cream cheese filled from Ambrosia in BR.
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Dec 27, 2019 23:21
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I'm not much for baking but I love the regular ol' cinnamon king cake from Rouse's. I always end up going through a few.
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Dec 27, 2019 23:36
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