The Last Fish: Seafood Gumbo

I have this radical idea that we should just stop eating fish out of the oceans. Bluefin tuna have become the modern equivalent of the American bison: we've fished them almost to extinction. Europeans have so decimated the fish stocks off West Africa that the locals are abandoning their homeland for lack of a catch. The once-abundant coho salmon no longer return to spawn in their former numbers on our own west coast. And the list goes on.

I follow the recommendations of the Monterey Bay Aquarium's "Seafood Watch" program, which is one of several of its kind that list which seafoods they think are sustainable and which to avoid. These days, I wistfully pass the seafood counter at the local Whole Foods, admiring the monkfish, the red snapper, the Chilean seabass--all off limits to me now.

That doesn't mean you can't eat seafood at all. Look lower down the food chain, especially to shellfish, which grow and reproduce much more quickly--and in greater profusion--than large predator fish. A classic Creole gumbo is a perfect treatment. It has just the kind of big flavors I like, and you can add almost anything to it. For this particular gumbo, I used shrimp, scallops, catfish and garlic sausage.

Gumbo starts with roux, which may be familiar to you as the basis of a Bechamel sauce. But the roux for gumbo is cooked longer. For a seafood gumbo, some say the darker the roux the better, until it is almost black. I've explained previously why a long-cooked roux doesn't thicken much. The molecules in the flour are re-arranged, so the roux is more for flavor and appearance.

For six persons, coat the bottom of a heavy pot or Dutch oven with canola oil and over high heat brown 1/2-pound Kielbasa sausage, cut into slices on an angle. Remove the sausage and lightly brown 1/2-pound sea scallops, which may need to be cut in half or into quarters if they are very large. Remove the scallops, lower the heat to moderately-low and add 1/2 cup canola oil. Stir in 1/2 cup all-purpose flour. Cook, stirring frequently, until the roux is dark brown. Do not let it burn. This could take a half-hour or more.

To the cooked roux add 1 small onion, peeled and diced small, 1 green bell pepper, seeded and diced small, 2 stalks celery, cleaned and diced small, and 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped. Cook until the onions begin to soften, about 10 minutes. Add a handful chopped parsley, 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, 1 bay leaf, 1/2 teaspoons salt and a generous pinch black pepper to the pot, as well as the browned sausage. Pour in 4 cups stocks. This can be made with shells from your shrimp or from fish racks (skeletons) purchased from the fish monger, or use a store-bought seafood stock. I used a home-made chicken stock that was rich with flavor. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and cook for about 20 minutes, or until the gumbo is aromatic and flavorful.

Just before serving, add 1/2-pound deveined jumbo shrimp, the scallops and 1/2-pound catfish fillet, cut into pieces, and cook just until the seafood is cooked through. Adjust seasonings, ladle gumbo over rice, such as a brown Basmati rice, and serve hot, with a flourish, perhaps garnished with more chopped parsley.

Note: The Monterey Bay Aquarium's "Seafood Watch" program advises to avoid imported shrimp and select wild-caught or farmed shrimp from the U.S. or Canada, with wild-caught shrimp from Oregon and British Columbia listed as the "best" choice. Avoid wild-caught sea scallops from the U.S. Mid-Atlantic and any kind of imitation scallop. Choose either wild-caught sea scallops from the Northeast or farmed bay scallops. Farmed U.S. channel catfish are the best choice, but other kinds of imported farmed catfish can be substituted.

Turning Roux into Gumbo

By the time you've finished reading the last two posts, you should be fully equipped to rush out and buy enough seafood to make your own New Orleans-style gumbo.

At least, that is my hope. But first, to finish this business of roux.

I was intrigued to read Paul Prudhomme's comment that dark and even "black" roux are "best to use in gumbos because the darkest roux result in the thinnest, best-tasting gumbos of all."

Everyone is familiar with roux as a thickener in the French bechamel sauce: First create a roux by cooking equal amounts of flour and oil (possibly butter) until the flour loses its raw flavor. Then add milk. Creole and Cajun cooking take roux to a whole other level, toasting the flour to various shades of brown or almost black to impart flavor and color, along with thickening the sauce or stew.

What puzzled me was Prudhomme's observation that the darkest roux are not only the best-tasting, but also the thinnest. Being enormous of girth, Prudhomme may have a special affinity for thin roux just on general principles. But there's more to it than that. My own experiences with gumbo correspond to Prudhomme's: No matter how much flour and oil I mix, the darker I cook it, the thinner my gumbo gets.

What's that about?

I thought this question merited a scientific explanation. So I cracked open my copy of Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen (completely revised and updated version). Under "roux," McGee not only observes that darker roux impart a toasty flavor, he goes on to explain why the darkest roux make the thinnest gumbos.

Heating for long periods, McGee says, causes some of the starch chains in the flour to split, then form new bonds with each other. "This generally means that long chains and branches are broken down into smaller pieces that then form short branches on other molecules. The short, branched molecules are less efficient at thickening liquids than the long chains..."

McGee continues, "The darker the roux, the more starch chains are modified in this way, and so the more roux is required to create a given thickness. It takes more of a dark brown roux than a light one to thicken a given amount of liquid."

Hence, rule #1 for gumbo: Make a dark roux for seafood, but don't expect it to be particularly thick. The darker you make it, the more flour and oil you'll need to thicken it.

Having read virtually all of the gumbo recipes in my library, I have the sense that thickness is a matter of personal preference where gumbo is concerned. To make a gumbo for 10 persons, I've seen recipes that call for as little as a few tablespoons of roux, as in original Creole versions, to two cups of roux (meaning one cup oil, one cup flour) or more in various Cajun versions.

I think Prudhomme's recipe is close to optimal. In his version of a seafood gumbo with Andouille sausage he calls for 1 1/2 cups dark roux (3/4 cup oil, 3/4 cup flour) to feed 10 persons. I would procede as follows:

In a heavy stew pot or Dutch oven, bring 3/4-cup canola oil to almost smoking over moderately high heat. Reduce heat to moderately low and slowly stir in 3/4-cup all-purpose flour and cook, stirring frequently until the roux is a dark brown. This could take an hour, so:

While keeping one eye on the roux, shell and devein 1 pound medium U.S. shrimp, either wild-caught or farmed, reserving the shells. Refrigerate the shrimp. Place the shells and 5 cups water in a pot. Bring to a boil and cook, partially covered, for about 20 minutes.

While the shrimp stock is cooking, cut into small dice one large yellow onion, three stalks celery and two green bell peppers. Peel and finely chop 5 garlic cloves. Set aside.

Cut 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs (prefereably pasture-raised) into bite-sized pieces. Refrigerate.

Cut 1 pound Andouille sausage or Kielbasa into bite-sized pieces. Set aside.

When the roux has reached the desired color, the onion, celery, green bell pepper and garlic normally would be added and cooked in the roux until tender. I'm not sure if the roux picks up added flavor this way, or if this method simply avoids messing another pot. I favor cooking the vegetables in a separate pan with a splash of canola oil and some salt, then adding the cooked vegetables to the roux.

While the roux and vegetable mixture is hot, pour the finished shrimp stock into the pot through a strainer and stir to blend. Add the sausage, the chicken, 2 bay leaves, 1/2 cup chopped parsley and 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme at this point. Season with salt (about 1 teaspoon) and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Cook for about 30 minutes, or until quite flavorful. If more liquid is needed, add chicken stock or seafood stock.

The gumbo can be made to this point and refrigerated a day or two ahead. (If you find a layer of oil at the top of the mix, skim it off.) Just before serving, heat the gumbo until it begins to bubble, then add the peeled shrimp and 1 pound of crab backfin meat. Cook another minute or two, or until the shrimp are cooked through.

To serve, distribute cooked brown basmati rice in shallow bowls and ladle generous portions of gumbo over the rice. Hearty greens, well cooked and seasoned with red wine vinegar, can be spooned into the bowl as a side.

Serve with French bread and a nice Beaujolais wine.

Pierogies, Gumbo and Sour Cherry Pie

Doesn't this look like a festive scene?


Our friend Lavinia (middle) is in town from Salvador, where she's working with a disaster relief agency and it was her birthday. In addition, or friend Tom Janota, the guy with the big smile, is here from Mexico City.

Can you say, Fiesta!


Even better, Lavinia brought her mom along with several bags of fresh pierogies from the West Side Market in Cleveland, where they'd been visiting friends. (Pierogies, for the unintiated, are Polish dumplings filled with almost anything, but in this case potato, sauerkraut, and potato-bacon.)


Isn't it great when someone calls and says, "We're in Cleveland. Can we bring anything for dinner?"


Of course we requested the pierogies.


For the occasion, I put together a batch of gumbo with shrimp (U.S. wild-caught), chicken (thighs only) and Kielbasa sausage. I know, I was already on a gumbo jag in Anguilla. But how often does it happen, you re-discover a food you really love and you can't stop making it? I may even make some more gumbo for a client dinner on Monday. Can't get enough of a good thing.


Meanwhile, while I was in Anguilla, my wife and daughter visited one of the local orchards with our friends Keith and Janice and picked 50 pounds of sour cherries.


You heard correctly: 50 (that's fifty) pounds. They split the load, so my wife has spent part of the last several days pitting bucket after bucket of cherries. (Not to worry: There was plenty of work for me to catch up on in the garden. More about that later...)


So in addition to this being a pierogi-gumbo-birthday night, it was also an evening to celebrate sour cherries. That's my wife's twist on a a sour cherry smash you see in the martini glass. And for dessert, she baked a sour cherry pie.


We sat around the kitchen island eating pierogies and home-made sauerkraut and drinking sour cherry smash (or beer, or wine), then retired to the deck for a salad of fresh greens from the garden, followed by the gumbo served over rice my sister had brought back from a trip to South Carolina. Then a smashing good sour cherry pie with vanilla ice cream.

Lavinia's mother, originally from Romania, regaled us with stories of picking her own fruits and turning them into "tutti frutti," which in Romanian apparently translates into plopping a bunch of cherries and other things into a canning jar and covering it with grain alcohol. (She worked in a lab, she explained, where the alcohol was uncommonly pure.)


One piece of sour cherry pie came out of the kitchen with a candle in it and we broke into a rousing "Happy Birthday!" for Lavinia.


"This is the best pie I've ever eaten!" gushed brother-in-law Tom.

I think he was right....