I used to be good at a lot of things. Then I met my Giraffe and I began to doubt my abilities. All the things I was able to take pride in: science, being the best at Street Fighter II for SNES...and the one that upset me the most, cooking. I had been trying my best to overcome this and just bull my way through it, including the first time I cooked for him which turned out very badly but that's another story. Everything was going okay...until the gumbo.
It still pains me to talk about it.
My mom had been given a recipe for gumbo that was extremely good and could either feed you for days or a small army. I had tried this at my parents' house and wanted to do it myself when the weather was starting to turn colder and/or I wanted a touch of home in my own place. I looked over the recipe and it seemed easy enough, just large quantities. Mom even got me a huge stock pot for the occasion.
Roux
1 ½ cup oil
1 ½ cup flour
Cook (until color of old penny)
Add:
2 peppers, chopped
1 onion, chopped
Stock Pot
2 gallons water or stock
6 cups chicken, cooked and diced
1 cup uncooked rice
1/3 jar chicken base
2 cans diced tomatoes
6 cups celery, sliced
3 cups frozen okra
½ T. thyme
½ T. garlic
2 T. salt
2 T. Cajun seasoning
Hot sauce
File
Combine.
It still pains me to talk about it.
My mom had been given a recipe for gumbo that was extremely good and could either feed you for days or a small army. I had tried this at my parents' house and wanted to do it myself when the weather was starting to turn colder and/or I wanted a touch of home in my own place. I looked over the recipe and it seemed easy enough, just large quantities. Mom even got me a huge stock pot for the occasion.
Gumbo
(makes 2 gallons)
(makes 2 gallons)
Roux
1 ½ cup oil
1 ½ cup flour
Cook (until color of old penny)
Add:
2 peppers, chopped
1 onion, chopped
Stock Pot
2 gallons water or stock
6 cups chicken, cooked and diced
1 cup uncooked rice
1/3 jar chicken base
2 cans diced tomatoes
6 cups celery, sliced
3 cups frozen okra
½ T. thyme
½ T. garlic
2 T. salt
2 T. Cajun seasoning
Hot sauce
File
Combine.
I decide to do this one Saturday so I go out and buy all the ingredients I need to begin this beast and only one thing gave me trouble: filé. Filé is ground sassafras leaves that aid in thickening as well as being a key ingredient to Creole cooking. I'm originally from Louisiana so I couldn't just skip this step. This gumbo needed it! And I, of course, didn't have any. Since you add filé close to when it's going to be served, I decided to get started and as everything cooked together, I'd go in search of my ground sassafras.
I get to chopping and boiling and throwing everything into my ginormous stock pot, which takes THREE HOURS. That's right. Three hours of my life was spent chopping ingredients for only one dish. I want those three hours back. Anyway, I get everything together and it's simmering away. Now, I've already told Giraffe that I'm making him gumbo and to get ready for one of the best things he's ever eaten. I figure since this dish was tested out by my own mother and it was a Louisiana dish that he had never made, this was the perfect opportunity for me to one-up him. Bring some of my upbringing to the table.
Then begins the filé search. We search all over town for it and by the end of the night, we find it hidden away on a shelf at Publix. So I do my victory dance in the aisle, then go pay so we can get back to feast on this magnificent gumbo! At this point, it had been cooking for a few hours so I just knew it was about ready to eat. Wrong.
I stirred it up and saw that all the heavy ingredients were waaaaay down in the bottom of the pot and all the spices were at the top. We're talking at least 6 inches between the two. I had thought to myself that 2 gallons of water seemed like an awful lot, but my mom swore that's what she did it. She kept saying the water would cook out and it would thicken up to the consistency that I knew it to be. In addition, the filé would help thicken it up as well. So I thank her, hang up, and rush to the filé powder to pull this gumbo back together. No amount of filé could have saved this gumbo.
Giraffe tried to make me feel better by saying to just let it sit on the stove overnight simmering to help cook it down and see how it was later.
Three days later, this gumbo didn't look any better. Now, my hopes and dreams of being the perfect housewife are dashed. I can't even follow a simple recipe. All my efforts of trying to cook better had been for naught. However, my Giraffe knew just what to do to make me feel better about this whole culinary disaster: he held the stock pot for me so I could flip the switch to activate the garbage disposal.
If that isn't true love, I don't know what is.
I get to chopping and boiling and throwing everything into my ginormous stock pot, which takes THREE HOURS. That's right. Three hours of my life was spent chopping ingredients for only one dish. I want those three hours back. Anyway, I get everything together and it's simmering away. Now, I've already told Giraffe that I'm making him gumbo and to get ready for one of the best things he's ever eaten. I figure since this dish was tested out by my own mother and it was a Louisiana dish that he had never made, this was the perfect opportunity for me to one-up him. Bring some of my upbringing to the table.
Then begins the filé search. We search all over town for it and by the end of the night, we find it hidden away on a shelf at Publix. So I do my victory dance in the aisle, then go pay so we can get back to feast on this magnificent gumbo! At this point, it had been cooking for a few hours so I just knew it was about ready to eat. Wrong.
I stirred it up and saw that all the heavy ingredients were waaaaay down in the bottom of the pot and all the spices were at the top. We're talking at least 6 inches between the two. I had thought to myself that 2 gallons of water seemed like an awful lot, but my mom swore that's what she did it. She kept saying the water would cook out and it would thicken up to the consistency that I knew it to be. In addition, the filé would help thicken it up as well. So I thank her, hang up, and rush to the filé powder to pull this gumbo back together. No amount of filé could have saved this gumbo.
Giraffe tried to make me feel better by saying to just let it sit on the stove overnight simmering to help cook it down and see how it was later.
Three days later, this gumbo didn't look any better. Now, my hopes and dreams of being the perfect housewife are dashed. I can't even follow a simple recipe. All my efforts of trying to cook better had been for naught. However, my Giraffe knew just what to do to make me feel better about this whole culinary disaster: he held the stock pot for me so I could flip the switch to activate the garbage disposal.
If that isn't true love, I don't know what is.
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