Favorite Jambalaya, Gumbo, or other cajun food recipes?

[Mystic Muse]

I'm in the mood for some cajun food this week, and unfortunately, don't have a good recipe on hand, so I'm in the mood to try some things out.

I'm basically looking for something with rice, meat/seafood, and a bit of a kick.

Preferably, something where I can reasonably get all the ingredients in one place, and don't have to head to some sort of specialty place.

[T-Mick]

I live in the heart of Acadiana. This is my great-great grandmother's recipe for crawfish etoufee, from the cook-book we compiled before she died. It doesn't have her gumbo, but I'll go ask my grandfather if he has his recipe lying around. I have one, but his is better.



1 stick of butter
2 cups chopped onions
1 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped bell peppers
1 pound peeled crawfish
1 tablespoon flour
1 cup water
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup cayenne
2 tbsp chopped parsley
3 tbsp chopped green onions


Melt the butter in large skillet over medium high heat. Add onions, celery, and bell peppers, saute until soft and golden. (10-12 minutes) Add the crawfish. Reduce the heat to medium, stirring occasionally, until crawfish begin throwing off a little liquid. (10-12 minutes)

Dissolve the flour in the water. Add to the crawfish mixture and season with salt and cayenne pepper. Stir until the mixture thickens, about 4 minutes. Add the parsley and the green onions, cook for about 2 minutes. Serve over rice.

I'd make this thread my #1 priority, but I have work until late today. C'est la vie. I wouldn't attempt gumbo unless you can make a roux yourself, or buy it here, so I think this is the best Cajun meal you're going to get.

EDIT: The second recipe is the one we usually cook, my bad.

[Mystic Muse]

Well, I'm certainly willing to try making my own Roux.

[Aedilred]

Assuming you mean the same thing by roux that I do when I say it, it is extraordinarily easy to make. The only challenging parts are balancing the quantity of roux against the total volume, and in some cases, keeping it smooth while adding the fluid, and neither is exactly rocket science.

[Peelee]

crawfish etoufee

I came in here to say crawfish etoufee, funnily enough.

[Velaryon]

How easy would it be to adapt that recipe to use chicken or another non-seafood meat? I'm not allergic to seafood but I absolutely cannot eat it. However, a restaurant that used to be near my house had a chicken gumbo that I dearly miss, and I would love to find a good recipe.

I confess that I know very little about cooking, which is why this might be a stupid question. I'm not sure if using chicken instead would make it advisable to change/add/remove any of the other ingredients, is basically what I'm saying.

[Razade]

Assuming you mean the same thing by roux that I do when I say it, it is extraordinarily easy to make. The only challenging parts are balancing the quantity of roux against the total volume, and in some cases, keeping it smooth while adding the fluid, and neither is exactly rocket science.

It takes a lot of time and requires a lot of stirring if you want to get it to a darker shade than blonde, and you want to get it to a darker shade than blonde for cajun cooking. A good roux can take 20 to 40 minutes and if you're not watching it it will burn and thus be ruined. It's not exactly hard, but people who haven't really cooked probably lack the patience to do it.

As for quantity. Roux can be stored more or less forever as long as you seal it in an air tight container and put it in the freezer. So if you make extra, store it away. It's useful in tons of dishes, especially if you go for a lighter roux. Most of the Mother Sauces use a roux.

[Aedilred]

How easy would it be to adapt that recipe to use chicken or another non-seafood meat? I'm not allergic to seafood but I absolutely cannot eat it. However, a restaurant that used to be near my house had a chicken gumbo that I dearly miss, and I would love to find a good recipe.

I confess that I know very little about cooking, which is why this might be a stupid question. I'm not sure if using chicken instead would make it advisable to change/add/remove any of the other ingredients, is basically what I'm saying.

I am far from an expert in this cuisine, but in my experience as a general rule you are always reasonably safe substituting chicken for seafood. You might lose some of the richness and chunky meatiness of the shellfish but honestly I don't think you'd miss it if you don't like seafood anyway. You would probably have to cook it for longer, though: indeed it might be an idea to brown the chicken first both to make sure it's cooked and to help it retain its structural integrity in the pot.

When you say you cannot eat it, is that the taste or some other factor? I had an allergy to fish when I was young and couldn't eat it - and for years afterwards wouldn't, because the very thought made me gag. But it didn't take me long to be ok with prawns, because they didn't really taste that "fishy" to me, and that proved an avenue into eating shellfish and ultimately into eating actual fish. There is still some fish I absolutely will not eat, and most of the time I will only eat fish if it is served to me, rather than by choice, but I will go out of my way to eat mussels, prawns, oysters, clams and the like, and when dealing with heavily spiced food like jambalaya or paella will fairly happily add actual fish when cooking it myself, in the knowledge that the flavours which disconcert me won't come through.

So depending on the state of your aversion it might be worth giving it a go with a prawn/chicken mix, if only to see whether you can cope with small quantities of prawns in that context. If that's out of the question, perhaps try using fish stock in place of the water in the recipe: it might add back some of what the dish loses from not having fish, but sufficiently subtly that the fish taste doesn't bother you.

[T-Mick]

Alrighty, first off, Chicken and okra gumbo is a classic, and doesn't require a roux.



1 chicken, cut into serving pieces
salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper, to taste (typical :smallsigh:)
1/4 cup of oil
2 1/2 pounds fresh okra, cut into 1/2 pieces
2 onions, chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/4 cup of flour
1 quart of water


Season the chicken with the salt and pepper, brown it in a large, heavy pot filled with the oil. Remove chicken as it browns. Add okra, onions, and garlic to the pot, and sprinkle flour over the top. Stir constantly and cook over low heat until oil starts to rise to the top. (20 minutes) Add chicken and water and simmer until chicken is tender, and the gumbo has the consistency of a cream soup. (1 hour) Serve in a soup bowl, over rice.

In my family, seafood gumbo is more popular. This is a recipe for a LOT of gumbo, since we're usually cooking for the whole family. One person can't eat it all, but never fear! Gumbo freezes exceptionally well, and you can store it for the winter in single-person serving sizes. This recipe does use a roux.



1 cup of butter
2 cups of flour
6 quarts of water
1 10-ounce can of tomatoes with chilies
2 stalks of celery, chopped
3 onions, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
1 clove of garlic, chopped
4 pounds of peeled and deveined shrimp
1 pound of crab meat
1 pint of oysters and oyster liquid
salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper, to taste


Make a dark brown roux with butter and flour, add water, bring to boil until roux is dissolved. Reduce heat to medium and add tomatoes with chilies, celery, onions, bell pepper, and garlic. Chop enough shrimp to make one cup and add to gumbo. Simmer on low heat for three hours. Add remaining shrimp and simmer for 10 minutes, add crab meat, oysters and liquid, salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper and simmer another 10 minutes. Serve in soup bowl over rice.

There was a specific request for jambalaya, but we've never been a family that cooks it much. It isn't that hard, but I'll try to find a good recipe from a friend of mine. These days, we also cook a "pastalaya," which is a jambalaya that swaps spaghetti noodles for rice. Really a wonderful invention!


It takes a lot of time and requires a lot of stirring if you want to get it to a darker shade than blonde, and you want to get it to a darker shade than blonde for cajun cooking. A good roux can take 20 to 40 minutes and if you're not watching it it will burn and thus be ruined. It's not exactly hard, but people who haven't really cooked probably lack the patience to do it.

As for quantity. Roux can be stored more or less forever as long as you seal it in an air tight container and put it in the freezer. So if you make extra, store it away. It's useful in tons of dishes, especially if you go for a lighter roux. Most of the Mother Sauces use a roux.

Pretty much spot on. There's a very fine line between dark and burnt roux, and it's hard to do it the first time. Thankfully, it's cheap, so you can practice. Honestly, I've never been able to get it right. Local grocers sell theirs, I buy that. Or just use okra.

[Razade]

Pretty much spot on. There's a very fine line between dark and burnt roux, and it's hard to do it the first time. Thankfully, it's cheap, so you can practice. Honestly, I've never been able to get it right. Local grocers sell theirs, I buy that. Or just use okra.

Or file. I prefer file because it tastes better and doesn't give a slime consistancy okra tends to give off if you don't cook it exactly right and by "exactly right" I mean "trust in luck" because it's going to come out slime.

I find for roux, if you want to go really dark (I've heard various terms but Chocolate or Brick are the most common) use an oven. It's better heat containment, the long cooking time that radiant heat has over direct heat means that stirring isn't a huge deal, and you can check on it if you're new/worried it might burn. Certainly not for someone whose just starting out but it's not hard to learn. I believe Alton Brown actually has a video on how to do it right. Another helpful tip for making roux that won't burn, don't use butter or at least use butter but add some other high smoke point oil. I like using peanut oil because who doesn't like a light roasted peanut flavor and a dark roux is already going to have a sort of nutty flavor anyway so it just compounds the thing you're already aiming for. The addition of an oil like that will keep the roux from burning unless you're really really not paying attention.

[Velaryon]

I am far from an expert in this cuisine, but in my experience as a general rule you are always reasonably safe substituting chicken for seafood. You might lose some of the richness and chunky meatiness of the shellfish but honestly I don't think you'd miss it if you don't like seafood anyway. You would probably have to cook it for longer, though: indeed it might be an idea to brown the chicken first both to make sure it's cooked and to help it retain its structural integrity in the pot.

Thanks for the info! I don't know the first thing about cooking fish (for obvious reasons), but I do know that chicken has to be cooked hotter and longer than many other meats, so this makes a lot of sense to me.



When you say you cannot eat it, is that the taste or some other factor? I had an allergy to fish when I was young and couldn't eat it - and for years afterwards wouldn't, because the very thought made me gag. But it didn't take me long to be ok with prawns, because they didn't really taste that "fishy" to me, and that proved an avenue into eating shellfish and ultimately into eating actual fish. There is still some fish I absolutely will not eat, and most of the time I will only eat fish if it is served to me, rather than by choice, but I will go out of my way to eat mussels, prawns, oysters, clams and the like, and when dealing with heavily spiced food like jambalaya or paella will fairly happily add actual fish when cooking it myself, in the knowledge that the flavours which disconcert me won't come through.

So depending on the state of your aversion it might be worth giving it a go with a prawn/chicken mix, if only to see whether you can cope with small quantities of prawns in that context. If that's out of the question, perhaps try using fish stock in place of the water in the recipe: it might add back some of what the dish loses from not having fish, but sufficiently subtly that the fish taste doesn't bother you.

Honestly, it's everything. I hate the taste. I hate the texture even more. I hate the smell most of all (even fresh fish smells rotten to me). It doesn't even look appealing. I'm sure if seafood made a sound, I wouldn't like that either. That goes for everything from fish sticks to shrimp to sushi. Basically, if it lives in the water I won't eat it. I'm pretty sure it's more a mental than physiological thing, but I'm quite content to never ever eat or drink anything that can remotely be considered seafood. But everything else about gumbo is awesome to me, so if I can substitute out the shellfish then I'm ecstatic.