Mean Chef Chicken, Andouille, Ham and Okra Gumbo

From: HopeJohnJP

On Oct 1, 2009

Very enthusiastically received. Time consuming, but low stress. I halved the recipe. I must have whisked too fast or heated too slowly, because even after half an hour, my roux was more butternut golden than chocolate brown. I omitted hot sauces because good andouille has enough kick for us, and I stirred the rice into the gumbo.

From: Joseph Brown

On Dec 1, 2007

This tasted wonderful. My Wife Loved it. I didn't like the roux, the browned flour and oil smell was too much for me. Once the soup was finished everything was wonderful.

From: Neberanzan

On Oct 7, 2005

This gumbo is so good that I’d drive to New Orleans (from Ohio!) to pay some fat guy with a stupid catch-phrase $20 for a bowl of it. At the same time it was also very hard to make for someone of my skill level. I’m sure that there are all sorts of tricks to do the prep work faster, but I didn’t know them. I guess a better cook than me would be efficient and confident enough to do all of the prep work at the same time – like grill the chicken, cut up the veggies, and make the rue. By the time I reached step 3, at least an hour and a half had passed. At that point – don’t make this mistake – I proceeded to put FROZEN okra (I live in Ohio, remember? There is no “okra season” here) in the pot. Bottom line: It took 20 minutes longer for the veggies to wilt than it was supposed to. I wish someone would have given me this advice: Throw out your cheap plastic spoon and get a sturdy wooden one. This gumbo eats plastic spoons for lunch. This gumbo is worth all of the work, enough if your make every one of the mistakes I did and more. It’s very easy to save some money if you switch things up and buy whatever meats are on sale. It tastes awesome, even if you serve it with a lot of rice to make the pot of gumbo stretch further. If you stock up on a nice selection of hot sauces it can be fun and new every day you eat the leftovers.

From: Redox

On Feb 19, 2005

I’d give more than 5 stars to this, if I could! It’s another masterpiece from Mean Chef! Thanks so much for all your wonderful postings. I used my grandmother’s old cast-iron skillet to make the dark, chocolate-colored roux and a sausage combo of 1# of andouille and 1/2# of kielbasa. I followed the rest of the recipe as written. BTW – this makes a lot you’ll need an 8 qt. pot, at least. After eating this dish, my wife decided that she didn’t hate okra, after all. Of course, I didn’t tell her that there was okra in the dish until she’d eaten half a bowl. I enjoyed that so much that the next night I took some gumbo to my mother-in-law’s home and got her (apparently, she’s the one who poisoned my wife’s mind against okra) to enjoy a huge bowl of this delicious brew. I just loved the momentary pause of the spoon at her lips when I slipped the detested word “okra” into the conversation. It was fun, even if I’m going to have to use my wife as a food-taster when I go to her house for dinner next week.