Roux And Gumbo - That Special Relationship.

[DougGuy]

No Florida vacation would be complete without at least one instance of total indulgence in Florida seafood and what better way to enjoy an unexpected cold snap in the weather than making a big pot of gumbo to enjoy with family and friends.

The cold weather knocked out our long awaited fishing trip out of Cedar Key, but it sure didn't take any fun out of our visit here!

I hadn't made gumbo in a good while but the urge struck and we made the rounds hitting the docks and fish markets in Bradenton sourcing out the best the Sunshine State had to offer..

Had to break in a new Lodge skillet to make roux, but it came out perfect, and I learned something from using the new iron. The roux tasted a LOT like peanut butter! It didn't have that "almost burnt flour" flavor that you get from a really well seasoned pan. An old dog learns a new trick.



This is the finished gumbo, with crab, shrimp, oysters, crawfish, Cedar Key clams, scallops, and red grouper.



Sprinkle a little Tony Cachere's Creole Seasoning on top, dip in a buttered slice of fresh baked Cuban bread and sop up some of that delicious brown broth OMG..... I can barely move!

I will edit in the recipe when I have time to type it out..

[Hogtamer]

Very nice! A beautiful dish and perfect roux, likely cut with good seafood stock? No hurrying that.

[GhostHawk]

Good eating there!

Hard to make good gumbo in Fargo North Dakota.

[gwpercle]

Cold weather = Gumbo Time. Great looking seafood gumbo there DougGuy !
The roux pan....my mom had one cast iron pan that we used to make a roux in and you couldn't cook nothing else in it...it was just for making a roux.....Now I know why.

Got down to 15 degrees here yesterday....that cold forced me to make a Gizzard Gumbo.

[square butte]

I knew it was you as soon as i saw the title of this thread - Thanks for keeping us entertained with visions of good eating

[KenH]

A good gumbo is really good. That's one thing I miss about living in Lake Charles - good gumbo from friends there.

You ever drop a couple raw eggs in pot when cooking last few minutes? Makes a nice boiled/poached egg - love'm

[DougGuy]

Good gumbo is the keyword. Emeril said you can't make good gumbo with water and he was right. You can make gumbo with water, but then back up and read the first two words of this post.

We got all the seafood at one place, but they didn't have good blue crab. They had some that had been either steamed or boiled, and then were frozen, and I was like welllllllllll......... (as a last resort) so we went all the way across town to another seafood place that had live blue crab. The guy hooked us up with half a dozen large females, and this is what I started the gumbo with. About 4 quarts of boiling water, put the crabs in quickly, once they were stunned and scalded, remove them and chop them in half. Put them back in the stock pot, add a little Zatarain's liquid crab boil and in about an hour, you have this wonderful crab stock made from live blue crab. THAT is what made this gumbo, into GOOD gumbo....

If you cannot get live crab, use clams. 100 clams will yield enough clam juice to make a great stock. The next best thing is to use any kind of finny fish, scale and gut them and use the whole fish to make stock.

Here is the feast we throwed down on at my son's house in Ocala, we took the fishing money and bought shellfish. There is Florida stone crab, shrimp, clams, fried oysters, local caught red grouper and sheepshead filets, and scallops.



The clams you see in the bowl were 1 bag, 100 clams, $24 bucks worth. They raise them in Cedar Key and they are simply THE BEST tasting clams you can find. The water in Cedar Key has all in the world to do with the flavor of the clams and oysters that are farmed and harvested there, even the sea birds know something is good about the water, there are more sea birds in Cedar Key than I have seen anywhere else in the entire Gulf Of Mexico.

We steamed those clams over about 1qt of water, and they yielded about a quart of juice that was salt water retained in the clams when they were harvested. This half gallon of rich and VERY clammy tasting broth went into the freezer, my son is no newbie to good gumbo either, I am sure this is where it will end up.

[gwpercle]

I was eyeballing your first photo , with the roux ....do you always carry a wooden roux paddle with you when you go on a fishing trip to the Florida Keys ? Talk about being prepared !
Can you get Tony's in Florida or did you have to bring it with you.

[DougGuy]

The skillet and wooden spatula were here at GF's dad's house, I announced that the wooden utensil would be quite darkened on the end when the roux was finished, that was okay. Now it is a roux paddle, before it was just part of a tree...

Tony's was bought here as well as the Zatarain's liquid seasoning. What we cannot get anywhere, is Beazells!

[MaryB]

Love a good gumbo! So hard to get seafood here so sausage and chicken usually...

[T-Bird]

Exactly the color I make my roux for all my gumbos dove, seafood, chicken/sausage. Looks beautiful. I never liked the darker rouxs,- can't taste anything but the roux.

[Outpost75]

Mon père peut pas manger son gombo sans craquettes!

[T-Bird]

who can? Outpost

[Hogtamer]

If croquettes translates as good cornbread, me either. Well, maybe good ciabatta.

[Outpost75]

Actually craquettes, NOT croquettes, are Acadian style common crackers from Quebec, but they also make them in East Texas.

[Hogtamer]

I love this site! As it happens I just made a pone of cornbread to clean up some chicken and dumplings I made yesterday. Pictured with yesterdays ciabatta. The corn bread was better!
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[AllanD]

I was eyeballing your first photo , with the roux ....do you always carry a wooden roux paddle with you when you go on a fishing trip to the Florida Keys ? Talk about being prepared !
Can you get Tony's in Florida or did you have to bring it with you.

"Tony Cachere's Creole Seasoning" is advertised NATIONALLY and you can buy it at any walmart, or at least those in here in PA, the ones I stopped at in Indiana, Nebraska and Wyoming...


But guys Remember Roux is not specific to Gumbo, a proper New England Clam Chowder starts with a Bacon, or Fatback and flour roux....