My Christmas Gumbo

It's that time of year when I start to get out the pot and make my famous gumbo. It's really no different than most any other gumbo but the only time of year I make it is during the winter months when it starts getting cold. As far as making the gumbo goes, it does take a good chunk of time, but the end result is good enough to make you want to hide it for yourself so the others wont eat it all before you get to it.

The first and important part of making it is with what is called a Roux. It's basically a soup thickener but can also be made into a gravy for other things like mashed potatoes. The best and quickest way for me to tell you how to make it is to refer you to a video by a guy who goes by the name of Charlie the cook Andrews on youtube. Here is his video on how to make it.

You can make it out of a couple different types of fat or oil, but I like to use bacon grease for my roux. I would try and make the roux the day before to help cut down on the prep time. The roux is usually of equal parts of fat/oil to flour.

For the roux I use 1/3 cup of bacon grease to 1/3 cup of white flour.

Now when you get around to making the gumbo itself you will need the following:

3 cups of water
2 cups of okra or a 10 ounce bag of the frozen stuff.
1 chopped medium sized onion
1 chopped small green pepper
1/2 cup celery chopped
4 cloves of garlic minced
1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
Salt to taste
Some people like to have some tomato in there so however much tomato ends up in there is up to you.
Use as much cayenne pepper to get it as hot as you like things or leave it out if you cant handle it so much
As far as the meat goes you can have shrimp and crab meat in it to make it a seafood gumbo or about 12 ounces of chicken and 10 ounces of smoked turkey sausage. Or just mix it up on any of the meat to however you would like it.

The first two things I do is cook the chicken and the second is adding the roux mix into the 3 cups of water into a slow cooker or a pot on the stove. By the time the chicken is done cooking put it into the pot you would be cooking in and add everything else with it. If your cooking in a slow cooker, put it on low and let it sit for about 7 hours or on high for 3 hours. The cook times for stove top is about the same for low and for somewhere between medium to high its about 3 hours. And when it's done you serve it with rice.